Residual warming would occur after the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the year 2100 in the GFDL simulations of the A1b and B1 scenarios (similar to the committed warming during this century in the Commit scenario).
In the B1 scenario, the five year frequency threshold is surpassed by 80% of the world's reefs by 2030, fifty years earlier than in the Commit scenario and ten years later than in the higher emissions A1b scenario (Fig. 4).
The fraction of reefs expected to have surpassed the five year frequency threshold by 2005 increases from 7% in the Commit scenario to 19% in the B1 scenarios and 29% in the A1b scenario.
No coral reef cells pass the threshold before 2050 in the Commit scenario or the B1 scenario, and only 4% pass the threshold before 2050 in the A1b scenario.
The simulated increase in annual mean SST for each of the coral reef provinces over the 21st century ranges from lows in the Commit scenario to highs in the fossil-fuel intensive A2 and A1F1 scenarios (Table 1).
The results of the Commit scenario indicate that severe coral bleaching becomes a five-year event for over half the world's coral reefs by 2080 due solely to the physical commitment from the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere until the year 2000 (Fig. 4).
