For the first time ever recorded, the yearly rise of cold water in the Gulf of Panama simply didn’t happen in 2025. A new study from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) suggests that the trade winds were too weak to kickstart the process. This discovery really drives home how climate issues are disrupting basic ocean cycles and hurting the coastal people who count on them.
In Central America’s dry season, typically from December to April, winds from the north kickstart upwelling events in the Gulf of Panama. This process pulls cold, nutrient-loaded water up from the deep ocean to the top.
That action keeps fisheries booming and shields coral reefs from getting too hot. Because of this circulation, the water along Panama’s Pacific beaches actually stays cooler during the summer holidays. TRI scientists have looked into this, and their records prove that this seasonal pattern between January and April has been a sure thing in the gulf for at least four decades.
But recently, researchers saw that in 2025, this crucial system completely stalled for the first time ever. Consequently, the usual cooling effect and the explosion of marine life were nowhere to be found.
Exhaustive studies after this change in Panama’s seasonal patterns
Scientists writing in the journal PNAS think weak winds are to blame for this first-time failure, showing how easily climate issues can mess up the ocean cycles that have fed fishing communities for thousands of years. We still need to look closer to find the exact root cause and figure out what this means for the fishing industry.
This discovery proves that tropical upwelling systems are becoming more fragile, and even though they are incredibly important for both nature and people’s livelihoods, we barely keep track of them. It also drives home how urgent it is to get better at watching and predicting ocean climate in the tropics. This result is one of the first big wins from the partnership between the Max Planck Institute’s S/Y Eugen Seibold ship and STRI.
What consequences does this have for the rest of the planet?
Michael Fox, a coral reef ecologist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, noted that since upwelling is so crucial to the region, it is hard to see how we wouldn’t lose primary productivity—the plankton growth that feeds the rest of the ocean. He added that upwelling basically builds the foundation for the entire food web.
While some models predict that climate change might actually boost upwelling in temperate spots like California, what happens in the tropics is still a bit of a puzzle. The system off Panama is heavily tied to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Sellers thinks that shifts in ENSO might be messing with the local patterns in Panama.
Sellers noted that the complete failure of the upwelling this year is bound to hurt the vibrant marine life on the Pacific coast, even though Panama doesn’t track its fisheries very closely.
The team is currently reviewing the one exception—data on small fish like sardines and anchovies—to find out if the missing upwelling took a toll on them. Xie pointed out that the Smithsonian team hasn’t shared enough information yet to judge what caused the weird wind patterns or if climate change made the failure more probable.
Will it happen—or rather not happen—again in 2026?
At the start of the year, La Niña likely increased pressure on the Pacific side, which would have sapped the winds’ strength. However, Xie argued that La Niña is a common event, so it can’t explain the unprecedented weather in Panama on its own. He suggested that something likely shifted pressure levels on the Atlantic side to the north as well. But we need more research to know for sure.
We are yet to see if the cold water will fail to rise again in 2026.