The Manmade Clouds That Could Help Save the Great Barrier Reef

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By Ferris Jabr, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: On a hot February morning, that ship and two smaller companion barges — nicknamed Big Daddy and the Twins — roamed a bay within the Palm Islands cluster, off the northeastern coast of Australia. Each pumped seawater aboard, pressurized it and sprayed it into the air through hundreds of tiny nozzles arrayed on metal frames. Dense plumes of fog billowed from all three vessels, forming long white strands that eventually converged into a seamless cloak. ...Since 2016, Harrison and his colleagues have been investigating whether it is possible to reduce coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef by altering the weather above it. ...Theoretically, machine-generated fog and artificially brightened clouds can shade and cool the water in which corals live, sparing them much of that stress. ...The failure to prevent the planet’s average temperature from reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial base line, and the progressively obvious and lethal consequences of climate change, are rapidly shifting attitudes toward geoengineering. Interventions once deemed too risky to study are now viewed as potentially necessary.... 

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How will China impact the future of climate change? You might be surprised

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