Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
31
27
24
L-______________
~
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C. Northern region
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29 ,
27
1860
1900
1950
2000
2050
2100
Year
Figure 5.3
Sea temperature data on coral reefs at the northern end of the Great Barrier
Reef from 1860 and projected to 2100
Source: Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999
Notes
a The northern end of the Great Barrier Reef = 11°S,143°E.
b Data generated by a GCM model (ECHAM4/OPYC3).
c Temperatures were generated for each month from 1860 to 2100, and were forced by
a doubling of CO
2
in the atmosphere (~560 ppm). The horizontal line is the average
threshold for bleaching at northern sites of the Great Barrier Reef.
d Full details to be found at Hoegh-Guldberg (1999).
Reef are in serious risk of losing their abundant reef-building coral communities
(
Figure 5.3
), if society continues to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases (Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999; Done et al., 2003; Donner
et al., 2005). These perspectives gain further credibility when new field observa-
tions (e.g. 40-50 per cent decline in coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef since
1980 - Bruno and Selig, 2007; Hughes et al., 2011; De'ath et al., 2012) are highly
consistent with model projections.
The most recent studies (Frieler et al., 2012), based on the latest ensembles
of climate models (Taylor et al., 2012), are very consistent with the conclusion
of earlier studies (Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999; Done et al., 2003; Donner et al.,
