Drone footage shows scientists using 'cloud brightening' to protect Great Barrier Reef

Record ID: 1638923

  • Title: Drone footage shows scientists using 'cloud brightening' to protect Great Barrier Reef
  • Date: 27th September 2021
  • Summary: COFFS HARBOUR, AUSTRALIA (RECENT - SEPTEMBER 20, 2021) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SENIOR LECTURER AT NATIONAL MARINE SCIENCE CENTRE AT SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY AND CLOUD BRIGHTENING PROJECT LEADER, DR DANIEL HARRISON, SAYING: "One of the main things that we've discovered from our research so far is that it does look like this idea is actually feasible. So people have been researching it a very, very long time theoretically, but the step from that to being able to produce the sheer amount of sea salt droplets at nano size that are required to actually brighten the clouds has never been attempted before and we had our own questions about whether it would really be feasible or not. But so far we are able to generate this sea water plume and we can measure it already up to about 12 kilometres downwind and this is only the first prototype."
  • Embargoed: 11th October 2021 11:19
  • Keywords: Australia COP26 Great Barrier Reef Queensland United Nations Climate Change Conference climate climate change
  • Location: BROADHURST REEF ON THE GREAT BARRIER REEF, COFFS HARBOUR, AUSTRALIA
  • City: BROADHURST REEF ON THE GREAT BARRIER REEF, COFFS HARBOUR, AUSTRALIA
  • Country: Australia
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Australia,Climate Adaptation and Solution,Climate Change,Environment,General News
  • Reuters ID: LVA006EWMT84B
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:As a turbine sprays microscopic sea water particles across a section of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, researchers are using a technique known as 'cloud brightening' to protect vulnerable corals from bleaching.
    Researchers working on the so-called Cloud Brightening project said they use a turbine to atomise sea water and blow it into the air to thicken existing clouds and reduce sunlight on the world's largest coral reef ecosystem located off Australia's northeast coast.
    The water droplets evaporate leaving only tiny salt crystals which float up into the atmosphere allowing water vapour to condense around them, forming clouds, said Daniel Harrison, a senior lecturer at Southern Cross University, who runs the project.
    The project had its second trial in March, the end of the Southern Hemisphere summer when the Reef off Australia's northeast is at its hottest, gathering valuable data on the atmosphere when corals are at most risk of bleaching.
    "If we do it over an extended period of time for a few weeks to a couple of months when the corals are experiencing a marine heatwave we can actually start to lower the water temperature over the Reef," Harrison told Reuters.
    "It's actually the light in the presence of the hot water that causes the coral to bleach. So by reducing just a small amount of light, about 6% or so of the average light over the summer, we can reduce about 50 to 60% of the bleaching stress on the corals."
    But the benefits of cloud brightening would lessen over time unless other measures slowed the march of climate change, Harrison warned.
    "Our modeling shows that very clearly, if we don't have strong action on climate change then cloud brightening can only help for a little while, eventually the effect that you can get from the clouds, it's limited and it just becomes overwhelmed by climate change after a couple of decades," he said.
    One of Australia's best-known natural attractions, the Reef came close to being listed as an endangered World Heritage Site by the United Nations, although it avoided the designation following lobbying by Australia.
    (Production: Stefica Nicol Bikes)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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