© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 5 (2014): 4102, doi:10.1038/ncomms5102. ; Tropical south-western Pacific temperatures are of vital importance to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), but the role of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the growth of the GBR since the Last Glacial Maximum remains largely unknown. Here we present records of Sr/Ca and δ18O for Last Glacial Maximum and deglacial corals that show a considerably steeper meridional SST gradient than the present day in the central GBR. We find a 1–2 °C larger temperature decrease between 17° and 20°S about 20,000 to 13,000 years ago. The result is best explained by the northward expansion of cooler subtropical waters due to a weakening of the South Pacific gyre and East Australian Current. Our findings indicate that the GBR experienced substantial meridional temperature change during the last deglaciation, and serve to explain anomalous deglacial drying of northeastern Australia. Overall, the GBR developed through significant SST change and may be more resilient than previously thought. ; Funding was provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FE 615/4-1), Australian Research Council (Discovery grant DP1094001), Australia and New Zealand IODP Consortium, Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Natural Environmental Research Council (NE/H014136/1, NE/H014268/1), the Cooperative Research Program of the Center for Advanced Marine Core Research (10B039, 11A013, 11B041), Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India (with partial support from DST & ISRO-GBP) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS NEXT-GR031).