Audio long-read: Can artificially altered clouds save the Great Barrier Reef?
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 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?
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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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