Drought Impacts Shipping at Panama Canal Due to Climate Change

The Panama Canal is facing record droughts, forcing the Panama Canal Authority (PCA) to reduce the number of vessels that can transit its locks each day. The reduction in traffic will allow the PCA to conserve enough water to postpone the water depth restrictions which would impact how much freight a vessel can carry. Droughts such as the ones facing Panama today were once thought of as being once-every-five-year-events, but now experts predict they occur more like once every three years as a result of rising global temperatures.