In June 2026, El Niño weakened Pacific trade winds, shutting down nutrient-rich upwelling; satellites then watched phytoplankton decline, threatening anchovies and seabirds as the ocean food chain began to unravel

Pelicans wandering into Peruvian ports and even moving through urban streets are an unsettling sign of food becoming harder to find offshore. Beneath the surface, an even bigger change is taking place across the Pacific. El Niño returned in June 2026, and NASA satellites are already seeing its effects in the ocean. As the climate pattern strengthens, phytoplankton are declining in parts of the Pacific, raising concerns for the anchovies, seabirds and other marine life that depend on them, as per a report by The Pulse.

Why is the Pacific losing its microscopic life?

The changes begin with the ocean’s smallest organisms. During El Niño, the easterly trade winds across the equatorial Pacific weaken. As the warm surface layer becomes deeper, the usual upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water is reduced.

That matters because phytoplankton rely on those nutrients to grow. When the supply is disrupted, phytoplankton populations can fall, creating consequences that extend far beyond the organisms themselves.

NASA’s PACE satellite has captured that change by measuring chlorophyll-a, a useful indicator of phytoplankton abundance. A comparison between June 2025, when conditions were neutral, and June 2026, as El Niño strengthened, showed substantially lower chlorophyll concentrations in the central Pacific, north of New Zealand.

Oceanographers Matthew Kehrli and Graham Trolley of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center expect the difference to become more pronounced as the event develops. The changes “may manifest as a greater difference in values across the current region, as a broadening region of reduced surface chlorophyll-a concentration, or both, depending on the behavior of the equatorial trade winds.”

What happens when phytoplankton disappear?

Phytoplankton sit at the foundation of much of the Pacific’s marine food web. A decline at that level can move upward through zooplankton and fish before reaching seabirds and marine mammals.

Peru’s anchovy fisheries are particularly sensitive to El Niño. Warmer surface waters, weaker upwelling and declining phytoplankton can cause catches to collapse. In 2026, Peru’s Ministry of Production suspended the fishery several times to protect remaining stocks.

The pelicans appearing in ports and urban areas provide a striking visible example of the disruption. With less food available offshore, the birds have been searching in places where they would not normally be expected to find it.

The wider concern is that changes at the microscopic level can eventually become visible throughout the ecosystem.

How long could El Niño last?

The return of El Niño was already being closely monitored before its effects became visible in satellite observations. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said in July that El Niño was expected to strengthen through the end of 2026, with a 97% chance of persisting through early spring 2027.

NASA’s satellite observations also showed the event strengthening in June. Sea surface height across parts of the central and eastern Pacific was already higher than normal, another characteristic associated with the developing event.

But the ecological effects do not necessarily have to last forever. After El Niño, the Pacific can experience a “chlorophyll rebound.” Higher iron concentrations carried by ocean currents and dust from drier areas of Central and South America can help restore phytoplankton growth.

A strong La Niña in 1998–1999 was followed by a major phytoplankton bloom in the eastern Pacific and a dramatic recovery in fish populations.

Why is NASA’s PACE satellite so important?

The 2026 event gives scientists an unusually detailed opportunity to watch El Niño unfold. NASA’s PACE, or Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem satellite, was launched in February 2024 and is now collecting near-daily hyperspectral measurements of ocean color around the world.

That means scientists can look at more than simply how much phytoplankton is present. PACE can help researchers distinguish specific phytoplankton communities and follow how they respond as ocean conditions change.

“The scientific community will be able to observe the 2026 El Niño with data across more wavelengths of light than ever before,” Kehrli and Trolley noted.

As El Niño continues through late 2026 and potentially into early 2027, those observations could provide an unusually detailed picture of how a major climate pattern moves through the Pacific food web.

The immediate story is written in shades of green on satellite maps: less chlorophyll, less phytoplankton and a food chain beginning to feel the strain.

FAQs

Why are phytoplankton declining?
El Niño is weakening the upwelling of nutrient-rich water they need.

Why are anchovies at risk?
They depend on the marine food web affected by declining phytoplankton.