Coastal upwelling helps set the physical context for marine ecosystems, and upwelling zones are among the most productive regions of the global ocean. Unlike earlier models, two state‐of‐the‐art climate models exhibit little change during the next century in the magnitude and seasonality of coastal upwelling, but climate models are still probably not sufficiently developed (for example, they underestimate interdecadal variability in upwelling) to provide valid projections of this key component of the coastal environment.