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Bleachers An undated photo received from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies on April 19, 2018 shows a massive bleaching event on a coral reef on Orpheus Island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. File photo of Greg Torda / Arc Center of Excellence for Cor / AFP
SYDNEY, Australia – An ambitious “cloud glow” experiment has been conducted on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in an early-stage trial that scientists hope can become a futuristic way to protect coral from warming global.
In an attempt to cool the waters around the reef by causing the clouds to reflect more sunlight, the researchers said they used a snowmobile boat-mounted fan to shoot salt crystals into the air.
The results of the trial were “really, very encouraging,” said project lead scientist Daniel Harrison of Southern Cross University on Friday, April 17.
“All the research is theoretical … so this is an absolutely first world to go out and try to take sea water and turn it into these cloud condensation cores,” he told the France-Presse agency.
Harrison emphasized that despite the success of the experiment, it would take at least 4 years of additional research to test the theory.
The warmer seas caused by climate change have damaged the health of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral system.
The experiment was carried out by the university and the Sydney Institute of Marine Sciences late last month, just before a thorough scientific survey found that the reef had undergone the most extensive coral bleaching on record.
Bleaching occurs when healthy corals are stressed by changes in ocean temperature, causing them to expel algae, taking away their vibrant colors.
It was the third massive bleaching event in the past 5 years, raising fears that much of the coral on the reef could be permanently damaged.
To have a significant impact on the reef, a large-scale experiment would need to be 10 times larger, involving the use of several large barge-mounted turbines, Harrison said.
But, he added, “if it works as well as we hope, then perhaps we could reduce bleaching stress by about 70 percent … potentially almost all mortality.”
He also said that the effectiveness of the cloud shine technique would decrease significantly as the ocean warms up even more.
That means the process would be similar to putting the reef on life support while addressing the underlying challenge of climate change.
“If we continue with the usual business-type emissions scenarios, then at most this technology can buy an additional couple of decades before we see the complete loss of the reef,” he warned. – Rappler.com
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