The Manmade Clouds That Could Help Save the Great Barrier Reef

Scientists led by Daniel Harrison at Southern Cross University conducted their most successful test of marine cloud brightening technology in February, deploying three vessels nicknamed "Big Daddy and the Twins" in the Palm Islands off northeastern Australia. The ships pumped seawater through hundreds of tiny nozzles to create dense fog plumes and brighten existing clouds, aiming to shade and cool reef waters to prevent coral bleaching caused by rising ocean temperatures.

Harrison's team has been investigating weather modification above the Great Barrier Reef since 2016 and represents the only group conducting open-ocean cloud brightening experiments. The localized geoengineering approach seeks to reduce stress on corals that forces them to expel symbiotic algae during heat waves.

Forget it

[gweihir]

The Great Barrier Reef is toast. This is just an effort to make that less obvious.

Re:

[srmalloy]

According to the Australian Institute of Marine Science's report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef for 2023/2024 [aims.gov.au], it's in quite good health, with coverage increasing in all three of the northern, central, and southern areas. This appears to be just another solution in search of a problem, a program created to justify sucking down more funding so that they can be seen to be fighting "climate change", whether or not the programs they're pursuing have any effect.

Re:

[thegarbz]

This appears to be just another solution in search of a problem

According to the Australian Institute of Marine Science's report that you so graciously linked all health indicators including bleaching events and crown of thorns outbreaks are on the rise which is an indicator that the reef is in fact "toast".

Let me give you a human analogy: You just declared that the Gaza strip is a thriving and growing area because more houses (or tents) are popping up in places there weren't before, while ignoring the massive destruction.

Re:

[PDXNerd]

Did you even read the summary of the paper, which is, to quote, "Coral cover remains high while impacts of mass coral bleaching yet to be determined", and later, even with pictures for those who don't like to read, it shows that the coral cover in the northern and central great barrier reefs are at an *all time high* (since measurements started in the 1980s).

However:

The high coral cover reported this year is good news but does not mean all is fine on the GBR as it continues to face cumulative stressors. 2024 saw the fifth mass coral bleaching event since 2016 with the largest spatial footprint of coral bleaching yet recorded, coupled with the impact of two tropical cyclones.

And not everyone is as pessimistic as you. Some scientists hope that governments will be convinced to help play a bigger role in reducing poll

Oh great

[EvilSS]

The chemtrail/"clouds didn't exist before 2020" idiots are just going to eat this up.

Not new idea

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

Years ago, someone suggested releasing seawater at 800m altitude to turn dry coastlines, green.

What happened to the coral ...

[Big Bipper]

What happened to the coral during the Medieval warm period, or during the Roman warm period, or during the Minoan warm period, or during all the other periodic warm periods when the planet was several degrees warmer than it is now ? Triremes with locals flinging buckets of water up into the air ? Just wondering.

Re:

[SoftwareArtist]

All of those were localized events affecting the north Atlantic. Not a lot of tropical coral reefs there, and it's half way around the world from the Great Barrier Reef.

Current global temperatures [wikipedia.org] are 1 C higher than in any of those periods and climbing fast.

Where does the salt go?

[usedtobestine]

It doesn't. It stays in the ocean and increases the salinity. Excellent 'own goal' you dummies.

Re:

[PDXNerd]

Even if they were pumping just the water and leaving the salt at levels to create a cloud (ignoring the sun does this *all the day for a billion years*, and they found way to do it at that level and are somehow not getting rich off their desalination invention), I think you underestimate just how much salt and water there is, and how many billions of litres of water they'd have to pump into the air to increase the salinity even 1%, and that's even just assuming those clouds didn't immediately rain back dow