Scientists try ‘cloud brightening’ to protect Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef, Australia [image credit: BBC]

Research continues, but what other ‘futuristic’ climate-related plans might they want to conjure up if this trial is deemed a success?
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An ambitious “cloud brightening” experiment has been carried out over Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in an early-stage trial that scientists hope could become a futuristic way to protect coral from global warming, says Phys.org.

In an attempt to cool waters around the reef by making clouds reflect more sunlight, researchers said they used a boat-mounted fan similar to a snow cannon to shoot salt crystals into the air.

Results from the trial were “really, really encouraging”, the project’s lead scientist Daniel Harrison from Southern Cross University said on Friday.

Is ‘radical plan to repair Earth’s climate’ a job creation scheme?

Has it occurred to these scientists that the Earth might respond in unexpected ways to grandiose attempts to artificially change the climate? Self-proclaimed would-be saviours of the world should be closely monitored to say the least.

Researchers plans for new centre to explore refreezing the poles, sucking out CO2 and ocean greening, says BBC News.

Scientists in Cambridge plan to set up a research centre to develop new ways to repair the Earth’s climate.

It will investigate radical approaches such as refreezing the Earth’s poles and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Volkswagen in dispute with Mexican farmers over ‘hail cannons’

Mexican VW [image credit: retro-motoring.com]

This sounds totally bizarre – a local version of geo-engineering?

Mexican farming communities accused German auto giant Volkswagen on Tuesday of “arbitrarily” provoking a drought in the central state of Puebla to protect its newly manufactured cars from hail, reports Phys.org.

Volkswagen, which has a major plant in Puebla, has been using “hail cannons”—sonic devices that purport to disrupt the formation of hail in the atmosphere—to disperse storm clouds menacing the thousands of new cars parked on its lots.

China to build a rain-making network three times the size of Spain

Tibetan Plateau region

This is industrial scale geo-engineering. From one researcher: “Sometimes snow would start falling almost immediately after we ignited the chamber. It was like standing on the stage of a magic show,” he said.

China is testing cutting-edge defence technology to develop a powerful yet relatively low-cost weather modification system to bring substantially more rain to the Tibetan plateau, Asia’s biggest freshwater reserve, says the South China Morning Post.

The system, which involves an enormous network of fuel-burning chambers installed high up on the Tibetan mountains, could increase rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion cubic metres a year – about 7 per cent of China’s total water consumption – according to researchers involved in the project.