Cloud clouds, 'sun shields' to save Barrier Reef

Sydney (AFP) – Australia announced Friday its intention to explore concepts such as shooting salt in the clouds and covering a thin layer of film in the goal of saving the Great Barrier Reef.

Coral reefs, about the size of Japan or Italy, undergo two years of bleaching due to climate change.

Experts warn that the 2,300-kilometer-long zone could have suffered Although the government is committed to tackling climate change – the biggest threat to the world's largest life structure – he was also pushed to explore short-term measures to buy the reef.

In January, Canberra offered Aus $ 2.0 million (US $ 1.5 million) to Aus to bring innovative ideas to protect the site, which is also under pressure from agricultural runoff, development and predatory starfish. (19659007) One of the concepts retained is that of lightening clouds where salt crystals harvested from seawater are thrown into the clouds, making them more reflective and returns the solar rays in the space.

David Mead, a researcher at the Australian Institute of Ocean Sciences, said the idea might seem far-fetched, but the proposal has real potential.

"The team was planning to use a very fine nozzle to pump small droplets of salt water." The water vaporizes and you still have a particle of salt that will float around, and if you can introduce these into the system, you can increase the amount of '

Another idea was a biodegradable' solar shield ', in which an ultra-thin film containing light-reflecting particles covered some reef waters to protect the corals from heat stress. The film shows that it's only a molecule of thickness, so one can swim straight and it will continue to self-educate, "said Andrew Negri of the Institute Australian Marine Science at ABC.

Other short-listed projects mass production of coral larvae using 3D printed surfaces to support new growth, and large-scale harvesting and the relocation of larvae

Experimental commissions arrived Friday in Canberra – unveiled in 2015 – to protect the reef, along with other measures to improve the quality of water.