While the ocean as a whole is losing oxygen due to warming, oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) are maintained by a delicate balance of biological and physical processes; it is unclear how each one of them is going to evolve in the future. Changes to OMZs could affect the global uptake of carbon, the generation of greenhouse gases, and interactions among marine life. Current generation coarse-resolution (~1°) climate models compromise the ability to simulate low-oxygen waters and their response to climate change in the future because they fail to reproduce a major ocean current, the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). These shortcomings lead to an overly tilted upper oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) (Figure 1), thus exaggerating sensitivity to circulation changes and overwhelming other key processes like diffusion and biology. The EUC also plays a vital role in feeding the eastern Pacific upwelling region, connecting it to global climate variability.