This paper focuses on the parametric study of steady and unsteady forced and natural convection problems by the certified reduced basis method. These problems are characterized by an input-output relationship in which given an input parameter vector — material properties, boundary conditions and sources, and geometry — we would like to compute certain outputs of engineering interest — heat fluxes and average temperatures. The certified reduced basis method provides both (i) a very inexpensive yet accurate output prediction, and (ii) a rigorous bound for the error in the reduced basis prediction relative to an underlying expensive high-fidelity finite element discretization. The feasibility and efficiency of the method is demonstrated for three natural convection model problems: a scalar steady forced convection problem in a rectangular channel is characterized by two parameters — Peclet number and the aspect ratio of the channel — and an output –- the average temperature over the domain; a steady natural convection problem in a laterally heated cavity is characterized by three parameters — Grashof and Prandtl numbers, and the aspect ratio of the cavity — and an output — the inverse of the Nusselt number; and an unsteady natural convection problem in a laterally heated cavity is characterized by two parameters — Grashof and Prandtl numbers— and a timedependent output — the average of the horizontal velocity over a specified area of the cavity.