For those technically inclined, look up Ekman transport. And if you rabbit hole far enough, you'll encounter one of the most awe inspiring units of measurement, the Sverdrup.
As an aside, Panama is a particularly sensitive point in climate models I've run.
(Disclosure that I manage a climate research group)
The ocean generates 50 percent of the oxygen we need, absorbs 30 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions and captures 90 percent of the excess heat generated by these emissions.
Are there any clathrate-gun [1] style hypothesis that predict the entire gas exchange system could fall into runaway collapse? I'd love to read up on them, if so.
Slow changes, a return to a Cretaceous-style climate, etc. are a very different story than an "overnight" exponential and unstoppable Venusification of the planet.
Slowly rising sea levels in Miami vs one day you wake up and can't breathe anymore. Very different situations.
The short summary of this hypothesis is that the ocean develops hypoxic zones, anaerobic bacteria boom, and eventually the ocean starts releasing masses of poisonous H2S gas that wipes out most life on land (and strips the ozone layer for good measure).
They speculate that this might have been a mechanism behind the "great dying" at the end of the Permian. I'm sure the thinking has advanced in the last 20 years, but whenever people ask what the worst-case scenario for global warming could be, my mind drifts back to this.
>An anoxic event describes a period wherein large expanses of Earth's oceans were depleted of dissolved oxygen (O2), creating toxic, euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic) waters.[1] Although anoxic events have not happened for millions of years, the geologic record shows that they happened many times in the past. Anoxic events coincided with several mass extinctions and may have contributed to them.[2] These mass extinctions include some that geobiologists use as time markers in biostratigraphic dating
To your second point, the average reader is not a scientist (wrt this topic, at least). Scientists equate proving with knowing. To the average reader, however, there is little correlation between what we know and what we’ve proved.
The scientists don’t know why it happened, because they haven’t proved why it happened.
I’d wager that the average reader knows perfectly well why it happened.
Because people are afraid of the climate collapsing but they aren't afraid of mice stealing their wallets.
I don't think this is unique to climate research, I can imagine headlines, "Ground shakes beneath Mt. Rainier, alarming scientists," or "Ebola spreads unconstrained in Africa, alarming scientists."
It's fear driven because it might kill people. Unlike something along the lines of, "Mars mission fails as rocket explodes." That's sad but not necessarily causing harm across the population.
How is their research fear driven? They identify real change in the pacific ocean and look at what the consequences of that change could have on the wider system. Reacting with fear to reality is an individual problem, not an issue of science dissemination.
Have you ever considered that the facts might include some end of life as we know it implications? If they did, would you suppose they have a duty to pretend otherwise to protect themselves from naive cries of alarmism from people who literally cannot conceive of existential threats?
What does “fear-driven” mean? I’m sure there are people who go into climate research because they want to help prevent bad things from happening. Just as in medical research, auto safety research, cryptography research, civil engineering, and many other fields. Is that “fear-driven”?
> The discourse would be more effective if we stick to the facts without end-of-world proclamations.
Your complaint is with science journalism, not science. Let’s look at the actual quoted scientists:
“It came as a surprise,” said Ralf Schiebel. . . “We’ve never seen something like this before.”
Andrew Sellers. . . “major repercussions throughout the food web.”
“The climate is warming, that’s putting coral reefs at risk,” said Dr. Aronson. . .
But if [the current] disappears repeatedly, then “it’s cause for grave concern,” Dr. Aronson said.
Dr. Schiebel said. . . “Our fear is now that it would also happen to other upwelling systems,” he said.
With the exception of “grave concern,” these are statements of fact and falsifiable predictions, not “end of the world” prophecies.
As to why the New York Times indulges in such histrionics, well, how else are they going to maintain relevance in the digital era, by which I mean, how else are they to extract value from their advertisers & subscribers? We’ve proven at this point that the only thing people click on en masse is clickbait.
The reporting of astronomical objects is very fear/clicks driven when they find something that will come "close" to the earth.
With climate, there are the occasional "not as bad as we thought" articles when we get some new knowledge about a particular system, but the majority of it is fear driven as it's mainly bad news.
It’s not 40 data points, it’s 40 years of observations. Something that suggests that a phenomenon has consistently happened for 40 years and it didn’t this year. I think it merits investigation, especially when you have established with other data points that the phenomenon is consequential.
Think about it this way, to be able to say that it takes place annually instead of i.e. biannually or monthly, you need a lot more than one sample per year. You need enough samples to know when it is or isn't occurring.
> The 40-year record makes the 2025 failure stand out. Average historical onset around January 20 contrasts with a March 4 threshold crossing in 2025.
> The cool season shrank from roughly nine weeks to less than two weeks. Minimum sea surface temperature (SST) rose from historical lows near 66.2°F to about 73.9°F.
author Mulkey responds to a similar question in the comments:
Aaron O'Dea, told me in an email that the upwelling has been "as predictable as clockwork" for at least 40 years of detailed data used in the study. They have less detailed data showing that it goes back at least 80 years. And while this doesn't mean it never vanished before, he said they can trace the the upwelling's impact on coastal ecology and humans for 11,000 years.
https://archive.ph/fccxa
For those technically inclined, look up Ekman transport. And if you rabbit hole far enough, you'll encounter one of the most awe inspiring units of measurement, the Sverdrup.
As an aside, Panama is a particularly sensitive point in climate models I've run.
(Disclosure that I manage a climate research group)
gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/climate/pacific-cold-wate...
Original PNAS article: "Unprecedented suppression of Panama’s Pacific upwelling in 2025" - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2512056122
https://www.earth.com/news/unprecedented-collapse-panamas-oc...
The ocean generates 50 percent of the oxygen we need, absorbs 30 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions and captures 90 percent of the excess heat generated by these emissions.
Are there any clathrate-gun [1] style hypothesis that predict the entire gas exchange system could fall into runaway collapse? I'd love to read up on them, if so.
Slow changes, a return to a Cretaceous-style climate, etc. are a very different story than an "overnight" exponential and unstoppable Venusification of the planet.
Slowly rising sea levels in Miami vs one day you wake up and can't breathe anymore. Very different situations.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
This one still keeps me up at night, especially the figure on the 6th page.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513182952/http://burro.case...
The short summary of this hypothesis is that the ocean develops hypoxic zones, anaerobic bacteria boom, and eventually the ocean starts releasing masses of poisonous H2S gas that wipes out most life on land (and strips the ozone layer for good measure).
They speculate that this might have been a mechanism behind the "great dying" at the end of the Permian. I'm sure the thinking has advanced in the last 20 years, but whenever people ask what the worst-case scenario for global warming could be, my mind drifts back to this.
Your url doesn't work, I can't read the article
Thanks, it should be fixed now!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event
>An anoxic event describes a period wherein large expanses of Earth's oceans were depleted of dissolved oxygen (O2), creating toxic, euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic) waters.[1] Although anoxic events have not happened for millions of years, the geologic record shows that they happened many times in the past. Anoxic events coincided with several mass extinctions and may have contributed to them.[2] These mass extinctions include some that geobiologists use as time markers in biostratigraphic dating
Somehow I get the feeling if they used the word 'mass' instead of 'blob', a lot more readers would take the subject seriously.
Its a common word used for large areas of ocean water of anomalous temperature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob_(Pacific_Ocean)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_blob
Blob is perfectly good word, and much more precise in this case than 'mass'.
Depends on the audience maybe.
How are readers not taking it seriously, and what would be different if they did
The people tasked with knowing why it happens dont know why it happens
To your second point, the average reader is not a scientist (wrt this topic, at least). Scientists equate proving with knowing. To the average reader, however, there is little correlation between what we know and what we’ve proved.
The scientists don’t know why it happened, because they haven’t proved why it happened.
I’d wager that the average reader knows perfectly well why it happened.
[flagged]
Because people are afraid of the climate collapsing but they aren't afraid of mice stealing their wallets.
I don't think this is unique to climate research, I can imagine headlines, "Ground shakes beneath Mt. Rainier, alarming scientists," or "Ebola spreads unconstrained in Africa, alarming scientists."
It's fear driven because it might kill people. Unlike something along the lines of, "Mars mission fails as rocket explodes." That's sad but not necessarily causing harm across the population.
How is their research fear driven? They identify real change in the pacific ocean and look at what the consequences of that change could have on the wider system. Reacting with fear to reality is an individual problem, not an issue of science dissemination.
Have you ever considered that the facts might include some end of life as we know it implications? If they did, would you suppose they have a duty to pretend otherwise to protect themselves from naive cries of alarmism from people who literally cannot conceive of existential threats?
What does “fear-driven” mean? I’m sure there are people who go into climate research because they want to help prevent bad things from happening. Just as in medical research, auto safety research, cryptography research, civil engineering, and many other fields. Is that “fear-driven”?
> The discourse would be more effective if we stick to the facts without end-of-world proclamations.
Your complaint is with science journalism, not science. Let’s look at the actual quoted scientists:
“It came as a surprise,” said Ralf Schiebel. . . “We’ve never seen something like this before.”
Andrew Sellers. . . “major repercussions throughout the food web.”
“The climate is warming, that’s putting coral reefs at risk,” said Dr. Aronson. . .
But if [the current] disappears repeatedly, then “it’s cause for grave concern,” Dr. Aronson said.
Dr. Schiebel said. . . “Our fear is now that it would also happen to other upwelling systems,” he said.
With the exception of “grave concern,” these are statements of fact and falsifiable predictions, not “end of the world” prophecies.
As to why the New York Times indulges in such histrionics, well, how else are they going to maintain relevance in the digital era, by which I mean, how else are they to extract value from their advertisers & subscribers? We’ve proven at this point that the only thing people click on en masse is clickbait.
> No other science field does this
The reporting of astronomical objects is very fear/clicks driven when they find something that will come "close" to the earth.
With climate, there are the occasional "not as bad as we thought" articles when we get some new knowledge about a particular system, but the majority of it is fear driven as it's mainly bad news.
> The record he helps maintain shows the upwelling has taken place annually for at least 40 years...
40 data points isn't a lot.
It’s not 40 data points, it’s 40 years of observations. Something that suggests that a phenomenon has consistently happened for 40 years and it didn’t this year. I think it merits investigation, especially when you have established with other data points that the phenomenon is consequential.
40 records as in "observation" is expectable.
But dont dismis climate science that easily.
> An increasingly popular method to deduce historic sea surface temperatures uses sediment-entombed bodies of marine archaea
https://www.ocean.washington.edu/story/Ancient_Ocean_Tempera...
Think about it this way, to be able to say that it takes place annually instead of i.e. biannually or monthly, you need a lot more than one sample per year. You need enough samples to know when it is or isn't occurring.
https://www.earth.com/news/unprecedented-collapse-panamas-oc... mentions a lot of date oriented measurements which suggest they probably have at least 52 samples per year, if not daily samples:
> The 40-year record makes the 2025 failure stand out. Average historical onset around January 20 contrasts with a March 4 threshold crossing in 2025.
> The cool season shrank from roughly nine weeks to less than two weeks. Minimum sea surface temperature (SST) rose from historical lows near 66.2°F to about 73.9°F.
sometimes it's more than enough
But then sometimes it’s not?
author Mulkey responds to a similar question in the comments:
Aaron O'Dea, told me in an email that the upwelling has been "as predictable as clockwork" for at least 40 years of detailed data used in the study. They have less detailed data showing that it goes back at least 80 years. And while this doesn't mean it never vanished before, he said they can trace the the upwelling's impact on coastal ecology and humans for 11,000 years.