Trends of the Galician upwelling in the context of climate change

•Changes expected on the upwelling index at the coast of Galicia•The upwelling in the period 1961–1990 shows no trends by the regional climate models.•The RCMs underestimate the UI but qualitatively they represent it in a right way.•In the period 2061–2090 the UI between April and October will increase.

Coastal upwelling is a phenomenon of great importance both for the study of ocean dynamics and for the development of fish production in some coastal regions. Our study region, the Galician coast, lies at the northern end of the Canary–Iberian Peninsula upwelling system. Knowing the changes provoked by climate change on this upwelling system is particularly relevant for the future of this area taking into account the social and economic importance of fishing activities in this region. In this paper we study the trends in the intensity and frequency of upwelling in the Galician coast and the expected changes in this phenomenon for the next decades using three regional models implemented within the European project ENSEMBLES. As a main result, we observe that the models show a positive trend in both the intensity and frequency of upwelling phenomenon for the future, particularly significant in spring and summer which are the seasons favorable for upwelling. In autumn and winter there are no significant changes.