Lough, 2007:

[There is] "a range of uncertainties in projecting exactly how surface climate in northeast Australia and the GBR will change over the coming decades and century. It is clear, however, that we are committed to major global and regional climate change and that some climate variables have already shown statistically significant changes.

Projections as to how regional climate is likely to change are summarised in Table 2.2 for the years 2020 and 2050 and are based on two future scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES): SRES A2 (most extreme scenario with CO₂ by 2100 three times pre-industrial concentration) and SRES B1 (least extreme scenario with CO₂ by 2100 two times pre-industrial concentration)."

Table 2.2: Projected changes in climate for the Great Barrier Reef region for 2020 and 2050 based on SRES A2 and B1 storylines.

 Figure 2.12: Observed (1871-2006) and projected (to 2100 for SRES A2 and B1 scenarios) annual sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the GBR