This isn’t all El Niño, we lost the sunflower starfish which preyed on urchins and kept them in check to a disease, but the warm surface waters are another bad situation on top of low kelp cover, urchins out of control, no predators for the urchins, etc. if we don’t have kelp forests off shore, the environment will be totally different and many species that depend on the kelp will disappear.
The sardine stocks collapsed. Salmon season is cancelled. Abalone will probably never be legally taken again in my lifetime in California.
El Nino is a natural phenomenon, but when the ecosystem is already on the edge because of climate change, ocean acidification, and overfishing it is enough that it might permanently change the ecosystem. I’m explaining that it’s already way out of whack because we killed most of the otters, decimated the sardine run, and then the starfish wasting disease took the last main urchin predator.
[1] "Neutral" brought the atmospheric rivers: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/march-2023-enso-...
[2] Blue Nina, red nino: https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitorin...