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Nature Podcast

Audio long-read: Can artificially altered clouds save the Great Barrier Reef?

Nature Podcast

podcast@nature.com

Science, Technology, News

4.5893 Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2021

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Australian scientists are developing new technologies to help protect coral from climate change.


Earlier this year, a team of researchers used a mist-machine to artificially brighten clouds in order to block sunlight above Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The project is the world’s first field trial of marine cloud brightening and is among a number of techniques and technologies being developed to save the country’s reefs from the worst effects of climate change.


This is an audio version of our feature: Can artificially altered clouds save the Great Barrier Reef?


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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1:04.4

This is an audio long read from nature.

1:07.7

In this episode, can artificially altered clouds save the Great Barrier Reef?

1:13.8

Written by Jeff Tollifson and read by me, Benjamin Thompson. In place of its normal load of cars

1:22.6

and vans, the repurposed ferry boat sported a mobile science laboratory and a large fan on its deck as it left Townsville, Australia in March.

1:34.9

Researchers dropped anchor in a coral lagoon, some 100 kilometres offshore, and then fired up the cone-shaped turbine, which blew a mist of seawater off the back of the boat.

1:46.0

What happened next came as a welcome surprise.

1:49.0

After briefly drifting along the ocean surface, the plume ascended into the sky.

1:56.0

Looking a bit like a jet engine, this mist machine is at the centre of an experiment that,

2:02.6

if successful, could help to determine the future of the Great Barrier Reef.

2:08.6

320 nozzles spewed a cloud of nano-sized droplets, engineered to brighten clouds and block sunlight,

2:16.6

providing a bit of cooling shade for the coral

...

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