Assessing the vulnerability of the Great Barrier Reef to climate change

Ove Hoegh-GuldbergBill Dennison, Heath Kelsey, and Jane Thomas recently attended a Great Barrier Reef Foundation workshop to develop a synthetic publication that charts the vision for assessing the vulnerability to climate change. There are major climate impacts already being manifested, including sea surface temperature-induced coral bleaching, coral skeletal degradation due to ocean acidification, and relative sea level rise leading to inundation of mangroves. The development of a climate vulnerability index would provide a probability-based assessment of the likelihood of damage due to climate. This index is designed to complement the Great Barrier Reef report card.