Dr Janice Lough is a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and Adjunct Professorial Research Fellow and Partner Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Reef Studies, James Cook University. She is a climate scientist who has been publishing on issues related to climate change for over 30 years. Current research activities focus on 1) obtaining environmental and growth records from massive corals over the past several centuries, placing current changes in a historical context, and 2) assessing how climate is already changing for tropical marine ecosystems; climate change is not a future event—significant warming of the tropical oceans has already occurred with observable consequences for coral reefs.