An ambitious "cloud brightening" experiment (click here) 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.
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.
"All the research is theoretical... so this an absolute world first to go out and actually try and take seawater and turn it into these cloud condensation nuclei," he told AFP.
Harrison stressed that despite the success of the experiment, at least four years of further research would be needed to prove the theory.
Warmer seas caused by climate change have damaged the health of the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral system.
The experiment was carried out by the university and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science late last month, just before a comprehensive scientific survey found that the reef had suffered its most widespread coral bleaching on record....
