FRANCE: Radical moves to block some of the sun’s rays could be needed to save the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs from destructive mass bleaching, new research shows.
The claims come from scientists from Queensland and Britain who analysed the devastation various climate change scenarios would wreak on coral reefs and looked at methods to “buy those reefs time”.
But the Climate Council has warned any talk of so-called climate geoengineering could be dangerous for global efforts to battle climate change.
University of Queensland Professor Peter Mumby, University of Exeter Professor Peter Cox and others found geoengineering might be the only way to save large chunks of coral reefs globally.
Even under the most aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction scenario, the researchers say more than 90 per cent of coral reefs will be affected by temperature increases.
As an alternative or complement to emissions reduction, they explored a technique known as Solar Radiation Management (SRM), which involves injecting gas into the stratosphere to form microscopic particles to reflect some of the sun’s energy.
In research published Monday in well-respected journal Nature Climate Change, they found coral reefs fared better under the controversial technique than even the most aggressive scenario for reducing greenhouse emissions.
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