diff --git a/environment.yml b/environment.yml
index 5888361b6..5f8be25b0 100644
--- a/environment.yml
+++ b/environment.yml
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ dependencies:
   - tornado >=6.0
   - urllib3 >=1.26
   - xarray >=2024.7
-  - zarr >=2.11
+  - zarr >=2.11,<3  # until we can ensure zarr 3 compatibility; see Issue #1102
   # Chartlets
   - altair
   - pip