WATCH: Cloud brightening research aims to protect corals from bleaching

Dr Daniel Harrison: So, we're out here in the Great Barrier Reef testing the cloud brightening concept. Cloud brightening concept is that maybe we can take seawater, atomise it, which is sprayed out from this turbine here and then those droplets will mix up the atmospheric boundary layer and brighten the clouds a little bit. If we could brighten the clouds just a little bit over the whole summer then we could cool down the water enough to stop some of the coral bleaching. And there's bleaching all around us happening right now. It's the third mass bleaching event in just five years. 

Luke Harrison: The logistics for getting everything together for this experiment were huge, involving a ton of different universities. It's been really really great actually working on something that provides a solution and a solution that very much might actually work.

Usop Drahm: As an Indigenous person, our waterways, our seas are really important to us. It's good to see the scientists trying to help

the reef.

Dr Daniel Harrison: So, we're sampling downwind with the second boat which is going back and forth and at the same time we're sampling with the drone up in the sky and it allows us to map how the plume is moving up towards the clouds. So, if we find out that this technology works as well as we hope this might buy us a couple of decades but at the same time it's absolutely essential that we reduce our emissions.