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Scientists Consider 'Cloud Brightening' To Preserve Australia's Great Barrier Reef (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader quotes MIT Technology Review:
A group of Australian marine scientists believe that altering clouds might offer one of the best hopes for saving the Great Barrier Reef. For the last six months, researchers at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the University of Sydney School of Geosciences have been meeting regularly to explore the possibility of making low-lying clouds off the northeastern coast of Australia more reflective in order to cool the waters surrounding the world's biggest coral reef system...
Last year, as El Nino events cranked up ocean temperatures, at least 20% of the reef died and more than 90% of it was damaged. The Australian researchers took a hard look at a number of potential ways to preserve the reefs. But at this point, making clouds more reflective looks like the most feasible way to protect an ecosystem that stretches across more than 130,000 square miles, says Daniel Harrison, a postdoctoral research associate with the Ocean Technology Group at the University of Sydney. Cloud brightening is the only thing we've identified that's scalable, sensible, and relatively environmentally benign," he says... Next month, he plans to start computer climate modeling to explore whether cloud brightening could make a big enough temperature difference to help.
They're collaborating with Silicon Valley's Marine Cloud Brightening Project, which has spent the last seven years "developing a nozzle that they believe can spray salt particles of just the right size and quantity to alter the clouds. They're attempting to raise several million dollars to build full-scale sprayers." The article describes them as "one of several research groups that have started to explore whether cloud brightening, generally discussed as a potential tool to alter the climate as a whole, could be applied in more targeted ways."
Last year, as El Nino events cranked up ocean temperatures, at least 20% of the reef died and more than 90% of it was damaged. The Australian researchers took a hard look at a number of potential ways to preserve the reefs. But at this point, making clouds more reflective looks like the most feasible way to protect an ecosystem that stretches across more than 130,000 square miles, says Daniel Harrison, a postdoctoral research associate with the Ocean Technology Group at the University of Sydney. Cloud brightening is the only thing we've identified that's scalable, sensible, and relatively environmentally benign," he says... Next month, he plans to start computer climate modeling to explore whether cloud brightening could make a big enough temperature difference to help.
They're collaborating with Silicon Valley's Marine Cloud Brightening Project, which has spent the last seven years "developing a nozzle that they believe can spray salt particles of just the right size and quantity to alter the clouds. They're attempting to raise several million dollars to build full-scale sprayers." The article describes them as "one of several research groups that have started to explore whether cloud brightening, generally discussed as a potential tool to alter the climate as a whole, could be applied in more targeted ways."
So what happens if this intervention accidentally goes wrong and utterly destroys the entire reef? Wouldn't it be something if those who claim to be helping the reef end up killing it?
Perhaps: Well the ocean temperature dropped enough, but turns out the local increase in salinity due to the cloud whitening machine spraying salt in to the air has killed off the entire Great Barrier Reef. Oops.
We have a long list of hilariously bad attempts at introducing things for the ‘better’ in Australia, The Cane Toad, Gamba Grass and Mimosa Pigra just name a few biological examples. I hope this effort doesn’t get added to our list of failures!
This reef needs to either adapt or die.
This is just a waste of money. Trump would never allow such frivolous spending.
Heh, the reef is worth about US$4.5 Billion a year in tourist income to Australia, not to mention it's value as a restocking nursery for surrounding commercial fisheries. Even the extreme right-wing climate change deniers might see some value in that.
"But we do know it was us that scorched the sky"
Genius. Spray salt particles into the clouds. Then after the die-off from the salt water rains, we can all blame Trump.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The extreme right-wing climate change deniers probably think Australia is some kind Liberal conspiracy and doesn't exist anyway. Let's just wait until the geography is settled on that one.
To give the coral back its colour. There are plenty of good marine paints that can be used. Just around the tourist spots will do.
On the one hand we complain about man interfering with natural processes and bemoan climate change caused by our greed and shortsightedness... on the other we propose deliberately altering the natural processes in order to cause climate change because we know better?
And if it goes horribly wrong due to our shortsightedness and arrogance? I know several people who truly in the depths of their hearts believe that they know better, are brilliant, and can do no wrong. A little self doubt can do the world a lot of good.
Last I checked the western hemisphere's tropical and subtropical oceans warm while the eastern cool during an El Nino, while the opposite is true during a La Nina. We had one of the longest La Ninas lasting many years until last year which is why the California drought became so severe.
Am I wrong?
http://saveie6.com/
Spraying shit into clouds to alter them and the weather is a whacked out conspiracy theory....isn't it?
Heh, the reef is worth about US$4.5 Billion a year in tourist income to Australia, not to mention it's value as a restocking nursery for surrounding commercial fisheries.
Tough for the Aussies then. 'Cause you can be sure the parties ultimately responsible for the damage, will NOT be the ones picking up the bill (see: externalities).
Oh, so that carrier group really was near North Korea after all!
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Since the cane toad disaster, people have been more careful, and many biological control efforts have been extremely successful.
The prickly-pear moth, or rust fungus just don't generate the same headlines as the cane toad from 1935.
And we introduced white people, hardly a roaring success for any of the indigenous human, plant and animal populations.
...at least 20% of the reef died and more than 90% of it was damaged.
Leaving -10% of the coral reef in good shape.
The problem is you don't have a winter to kill off the gorillas. Need some global cooling for a bit.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
To save the coral from excessive heat, going for dying due to lack of light for the algae?
I think we are already too far down the tracks to stop the loss of a very significant proportion of the existing coral reefs in the world; temperature is only one part of the problem - overfishing using destructive methods and pollution are two other, major factors. We could probably stop the fisheries and pollution quickly (ie. in a few years - to decades) if there was any political will to do so, but the high temperatures will be with us for a long time, no doubt.
Given the rate at which we burn coal, flood the ocean with phosphates and generally have done our best to fuck up the reef, at this point there's no real downside to doing this test. We're already approaching a worst case scenario here.
Don't forget humans! The aboriginals decimated the the Australian ecosystem long before white man ever came along.
The aboriginals weren't exactly a boon for the megafauna of Australia either. Let's just face it, humans are bad for the environment no matter what their ethnicity.
This point probably need some amplification. For example, how finely do you need to know the currents - on a 10km-grid or 100 times as much work on a 1km grid. Acquiring submarine data like that is not as simple as you seem to think. Just as a starter, how does your mapping device in the water know it's location? Does it assume (incorrectly) that it is directly below some surface device?
This point certainly need some considerable amplification. A good start would be, has anyone ever successfully "nudged" a submarine current in any direction, let alone in a direction against the influence of gravity?
I'm not surprised you ticked the "Anonymous" box.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
"The Saudi's often import camels from Australia to breed against because they have more desirable traits and better breeds."
Would that also work for the British people?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And yet....I feel myself getting so lonely when they're not around.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
And after we successfully cool the water to prevent bleaching of the reef, we will have a poor crop yield. To counteract the poor crop yield, we will use more water and fertilizer on the crops. That will in turn create a subsequent increase in the crown-of-thorns-starfish (COTS). The resulting invasion of COTS will obliterate the ailing Great Barrier Reef.
This is unfortunately how it's going to go. I don't see spraying clouds with salt essentially as being a huge problem as the oceans have a lot of salt so it will likely just fall back in. If it works, it might help to save their reef which is apparently worth billions to their economy. The trade-off is cooling an area that large could cause spin off effects that could affect other parts of the world. I wonder how many climate change deniers are against them doing this? After all if burning a river of oil day after day won't do anything then what would spraying some salt do?
When push comes to shove, a country is going to act in it's own best interests to protect itself. If their climate-patch attempts break some other country's climate like ours, I'm curious to see how we'll treat it. After all it's not like all the manufactured goods and energy we consume could be having an effect on the planet right?
.
On the other hand, how much CO2 will go into the atmosphere trying to force enough salt into the atmosphere? Where is the trade off point on the effect vs damage from grinding, shipping, and blowing that salt hard enough into the sky? Clearly the whole process and its infrastructure must be taken into account to calculate any benefit.
Suggestion, power it all with the wind. The hotter it gets the more wind energy that could be use to grind, transport, and blow the salt. The more salt, the more clouds(?), and the less that photovoltaic energy that will be available because of the desired cloud cover.
Maybe in a few years Trump will let us put a couple of wind turbines on the base foundation left over where his Miami hotel once stood? Once Miami is under water the city will not be turning into the next Venice dream vacation spot. Might as well put it to good use. We could start building the hurricane resistant foundations now and be completely ready for all that free energy coming our way. Among other things, Trump solved the US energy problem! Yea!! This is exactly why we hired him. /s
It is means it is? Should've put "it's" in quotes. Hoisted by your own petard!
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Uh, no. All of earth can go bad at once. It's not a quadratic equation.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Sounds like a classic 'better than nothing' scenario to me.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Apparently all you have to do is 'nudge' it. So get fucking nudging.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The temperature of the water is the non-trivial problem. The other factors are relatively easy to deal with, but they play a far lesser role in the bleaching.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.