this is on the new electronic system going forward the manual system in the case of a contentious election would take precedence as opposed to the scene reports so ultimately these amendments would look at reducing the power of the board in terms of intervening in the case of a disputed election counting is underway in liberia as election to determine who will take over from president ellen johnson sirleaf the vote is seen as a crucial test of stability in the country marking the first democratic transfer of power in more than seventy years voters have twenty candidates to choose from to replace a live africa's first elected female leader. spain's government is holding an emergency cabinet meeting in madrid after koslow in years leader called for talks to resolve the country's worst political crisis in decades on tuesday congress put him on step back from announcing full independence for cuts in oh yeah and signed a symbolic declaration instead of a move rejected by the central government in madrid and

a sixteen people are dead in the u.s. state of california as wildfires continue to spread for a third day the fires have scorched the state's famous wine country and forced more than twenty thousand people from their homes. as always plenty more news on our web site al-jazeera dot com and in the news we'll continue here after techno i.o.p. to say with a sense of watching. al-jazeera . where ever you. are the rain forests of the sea prize for their beauty and resorts is the wildlife. also one of the most fun ecosystems a threat to climate change and no place better symbolizes their importance on their

plight than australia's great barrier reef. this is technically a show about innovation and change not we're going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity made during its unique way this is a show about science i signed. on. every week oh yes. ok so this commercial they see behind me is a bunch of people already getting ready to dive in the great barrier for the first time much like me. techno is married to davis and travel to queensland to see firsthand one of the seven natural wonders of the wild. and to explore the scientific efforts to save it.

ask a thousand different people to describe what makes australia's great barrier reef special and you'll get a thousand different answers and sometimes none at all just to be new silence a nod to the fact that there exists things on this earth so beautiful he defied description and yet for all its capacity to inspire us on an intimate level it's when we step back that we are even more amazed the great barrier reef covers three hundred forty five thousand square kilometers roughly the size of germany it stretches twenty three hundred kilometers in length nearly equal to the entire coastline of chile and it's the only living structure on earth that can be seen from space and therein lies its vulnerability because it lives it can also die. although coral reefs cover less than two percent of the ocean floor twenty five percent of all marine life depend on them for their survival and yet according to

the world resources institute by the year twenty fifty nearly all coral reefs worldwide including the great barrier reef will be threatened with death a scientific prediction that if correct will mean the disappearance of one of the earth's most vital and enduring ecosystems within most of our lifetimes. off the coast of northeastern australia where the great barrier reef meets the shallows i meet with over two goldberg director of the global change institute at the university of queensland for him a hope for the best approach is no longer on the table i mean world wars we're quite willing to spend half of the supposedly come solving the problem this is as big or even bigger than a world war and we need to get both a result of and we need to get everyone behind the solutions solutions. problems that are becoming legion. there are multiple stresses that face color race like the

great barrier reef is sediments a new transfer slowing down rivers and smothering corals and other organisms that has been too much fishing in some cases where we've knocked out teeth bases but the real showstoppers now the global changes that we are like being on on coral reefs and it's the showstoppers that could be potentially catastrophic according to the world resources institute the absorption of an increased level of atmosphere carbon dioxide into the oceans has caused them to become more acidic this change in water chemistry inhibits the ability of corals to skeletons are composed of calcium carbonate to grow and increase in carbon dioxide emissions has also led to trapped atmospheric heat which in turn has led to higher water temperatures warmer water disrupts the symbiotic relationship that a coral has with the micro algae called zose and belly the belly is responsible for the corals food supply and when it leaves the coral begins to starve the effect

turns the coral white and is known as coral bleaching the heart of the problem is this scientific models show both ocean acidification and ocean temperatures spiking to unprecedented levels over the next one hundred years levels that without intervention would spell the end of coral reefs. it was against this backdrop that in two thousand and sixteen the great barrier reef experienced one of the most severe bleaching episodes ever recorded initial surveys by researchers at the a.r.c center of excellence for coral reef studies put the areas affected by bleaching at ninety three percent and estimates about the resulting mortality figures ran the gamut few climate related events in history have captured the media and the public's attention more it included an obituary for the great barrier. that quickly went viral it sent the tourism industry into an uproar and even gave the

scientific community pause and actual mortality survey conducted in late two thousand and sixteen also by the air sea center of excellence for coral reef studies proved a mixed bag the northern third of the reef was devastated losing an estimated sixty five percent of live coral coverage but the lower two thirds of the reef the area where the vast majority of reef tourism occurs escaped relatively unharmed spared by cooler waters from the coral sea just outside the city of townsville which sits at the southern tip of the great barrier reef a group of scientists are fighting to save coral reefs not just from bleaching events now but from the effects of climate change yet to come one of the goals of marine research in a time of global change is to gain insight into how marine systems like the great barrier reef may look into the future to achieve this researchers need to replicate and manipulate ocean conditions in controlled environments in other words literally

bringing the ocean into the lab and that is exactly what is being done at the most advanced research aquarium in the world australia's national sea simulator. a thirty five million dollars facility completely dedicated to tropical marine research for a scientific discipline whose researchers are used to working with simple tubs of water system is nothing short of revolutionary that's giving us the opportunity to do research that we've not been able to do before dr nicole webster is one of the lead coral scientists working at c so sorry you know in the process if we were trying to do an experiment about climate change free markets and corals and stick them in they sort of small nalley been sized tanks and hate them up a little bit but it doesn't really very closely reflect what's actually happening out on the range and the driving idea behind system is that if you have the tools and technology to accurately reflect conditions on the reef today then you can

accurately replicate what conditions on the reef will look like tomorrow yeah so we've got a number of tanks here what's what's going on this is our newest experiment which withholding evolution twenty one and it's about trying to assess what's going to happen in terms of evolution in the twenty first century but these really large tanks which enable us to establish these maize it dozens and one of these a cousin is that is it's not just one particular species of home we've got all of these things in the tank tenuously that we've bought orals we've got some giant plans in the tanks with but the chickens for your sense like trying to recreate the ecosystem but under controlled conditions about that manipulate the things you're interested in that's right and what we're interested in many colliding with this experiment if the temperature and the c o two is that was part of the local climate change the surface temperatures are rising the oceans are becoming more sedate so what this experiment is is we looking at current day conditions and then we're

looking at conditions which are projected by the i.p.c.c. we choose the top and mental panel climate change on conditions which predicted for the year twenty fifty and in conditions which are projected to be twenty one hundred three so. of tanks one an ambient tank that reflects temperature and ph conditions as they exist on the reef today a second that reflects those conditions for the year twenty fifty and a third that reflects the predicted conditions in twenty one hundred. but the level of control and detail in the system goes beyond even the. tell me a little bit about the tanks that we're looking at here i know this is our ambient yes and then you're manipulating temperature and carbon dioxide so that right give me give me some of the stuff here like a city and be a tank is set at about one hundred ten hot and you know you have a dark side which is currently condition so to generate out andy and values we've taken the last ten years temperature dot com we've averaged that and that for this

day is about ninety nine point four degrees or something like that so that would that would be the temperature at this particular time on this particular day in the air being conditions and then how are you manipulating the conditions off of your baseline here yeah your other train moves so it's a three. happened outside conditions for ten six hundred i t. which is what's being projected at the early parts per million or on twenty feet deep and then you are in hundred but twenty one hundred so that's what they rejected by the i.p.c.c. with the temperature we take the temperature values from the ambient thanks and then we apply plus one degree offset perhaps twenty fifty set of conditions and a plus two degree offset for at twenty one hundred which is that level of control and manipulation is available to every experimental room at the sea some facility and all of their tanks it's a system that requires nearly one hundred kilometers of piping seven hundred to

eight hundred thousand liters of new seawater daily and a computer system that not only must keep water temperatures and ph levels accurate to within one hundredth of one percent but also controls it all through the touch of a button keeping it all running twenty four seven is the job of operations manager craig humphrey they just for example bring up an experiment that is when you're on the train generations to the notion ok so the example here is is that we have the. temperature one each one of these rectangles represents i think tank with an organism in a car or a front of his assumptions or some of the text that we've already looked at exactly so temperature one is indicated by these color rectangles each color represents a different page ok there is a different concentration of c o two yes exactly so what we have in this are we have four different temperatures here for different pages and every combination of these sixteen different water is running into this room so i'll just let

temperature three for example i can see the red thanks for trying to and that's a perfect enough time but all of the cutting edge research that system's technology and engineering now allows ultimately one thing stands out we've never been able to run such a long time experiments because the quality of the water and the good quality of the controls put sophisticated enough that we could actually produce offspring after all it's not whether the corals on the reef today will be able to adapt and exist on the reefs of two thousand and fifty and twenty one hundred it's whether their descendants will researchers are seeking to determine not just whether corals can be conditioned to withstand future ocean conditions but whether those manipulated corals can pass those survival traits on to future generations the process is known as assisted evolution so the main goal of this is the evolution point today is to develop the skill. and present monsters in the climate so it's better to withstand hide something else in the city because. if we can perhaps

mix from the strong the skeletons hasa grown closer i did an audio all of the about madeline van op and is a principal research scientist at ames and leads its assisted evolution program and how are you going about this to walk me through some of the nuts and bolts of how this research goes about we are and crossing different species a and the rationale was that the mark may. i provide new characteristics to that but they commanded me to. let me go down the center of the growing this high risk pools on the public the future ocean conditions and basically have natural selection make those individuals that perform for they go out i'm really curious about this how do you go about the cross-fertilization what are the what are the mechanics involved in reading a coral it's a person or we need to send a team out to the river to to collect home use that and have ritual x.

so many to go around and pick those companies that are ready to go. as seen in this video shot at regular speed the collected coral colonies are brought back to the sea simulator to spawn the corals packaged both sperm and egg into what are called bundles when they are ready to release the coral pushes the bundles through the mouth openings of their polyps creating a distinct visual image. like christmas space like decorated christmas brings us right in with them applying for once again this is those bomb no stay close to the surface of the mic and us to come up with various and. back and then we bring them into our law raring area the bundles are than separated into sperm and egg and crossbred according to the breeding match scientists wish to attain selected sperm and egg are reintroduced to each other through and in vitro process two hours later fertilization is complete and what are now coral larvae are moved into rearing

tanks were dr lena bay looks after them while they are at their most vulnerable so point out what i'm looking at i mean you know these look like little dust particles but their baby clothes that's exactly right and each one of those can grow into. an old car oh if that lucky enough to find the right spot on me and have the right conditions so therefore it is old that's what's going to happen i'm not. so now we're going to take these small larvae and we're going to actually expose them to a very hot temperatures to see whether we can identify and winners under these conditions that the limits on them and individuals from from this bunch in here all right and you're doing not just next door just over here all right so baby coral go from those tanks over there and they wind up here yeah that's right so we have a nursery on one side and. this is on this is essentially

where we. need to very warm. and we do that for about three days. see which one survives not all coral spawned in the lab are crossbred some are simply manipulated or evolved but the end game is the same all right so this is one of the rooms where you're you have an experiment running and i see these little plugs with teeny tiny little world where these guys are so important this this little corner somebody's hero and but it was initially it's. a lot of articles bret's here in the sea simulator and hopefully. this in this election be able to reproduce itself with the project that you have going on i mean it seems to me like it's it's very solutions oriented right i mean a lot of the time you know scientists are are documenting the decline of a system and it can be a very demoralizing thing to do but in this case you're you're trying to come up

with a solution here what is in your opinion what is the end game of of your research what is the final result here are we are you driven to action i think is first if we could improve the success of. us why shouldn't. we hope that we will be able to increase resilience of. how things are in systems form grading maybe someone from. no snow and hans falls you know releasing them into the barn the breeding with the nato forces we would hope that that would increase the salience down and loosen them up so negatively impact the poor for over two goldberg the threat to coral reefs goes beyond simply the concerns of scientists when you take what coral reefs represent to paypal and this is the amazing numbers right so there's an estimated five hundred million people on the planet who come to chorizo most on

a daily basis to get food and income now that's about one in every twelve people that is dependent on coral reefs worldwide four hours north of the ames facility is the port city of cannes the primary maritime gateway to the great barrier reef more than two million people visit the great barrier reef every year many of them beginning their tour right here and that's what we're here to do to see the reef through the eyes of those who make it an economic engine as well as an ecological one. call mackenzie is the executive director of the association of marine park tourism operators his job is to represent the interests of the g.b. r.s. tourism industry both with the government and with the scientific community look there is no doubt that tourism is the backbone of the of the kane's region and that's underpinned by the fact that something like justin came to sixty thousand

people employed in the ranger is an industry across the whole industry it's a six billion dollar industry and employs about sixty three thousand people it's a six billion dollar industry that's huge that's six billion a year just billion me it just points in the last especially last couple of years with the follow up of a huge leaching event that was reported in the media you know the great barrier reef is really received a lot of attention what do you think about all the publicity that's coming your way . well one of the publisher he was an incredibly negative and also untruthful. we had stories of know what he's free to say the real thing dayton dawning and that we've seen stories where people are written lee you bitchery for the great barrier reef how has that impacted the tourism activities in the perception of tourism is here in cannes what little bleaching event happened this year so like in the season that most people who are already booked their trips to coming out so we've had a really good tourism season i worry about next year and next year is where the

people who was sitting in in america or in in europe are going to go or should we get the barrier of should we go somewhere else the morning that i choose to go see the reef for myself starts off ominously a squall pushes through cannes luckily blowing out just as quickly as it blew in. like the thousands of travelers from around the world do each day i book a trip on one of the reef leads boats the vessel is the reef test the captain is mark albert. the rate we're going to today is briggs right. thirty nautical miles southeast of kansas sot we go to on briggs right is about six made his day perfect for in trying to dive but all around greg's right his water that's thirty five to forty made his day so you have this nice cold water that's coming up in the race bringing all these nutrients into the right excellent sought for fish and flight simming in an aquarium the trip out to briggs' reef is about an hour and forty

minutes and without land markers it's seemingly a trip to the middle of the ocean until you arrive and the water settles and you are able to see just under the surface and the perspective of where you are and how large it is begins to settle it. once for moored it's a simple equation the quicker you get in the water the more time you get to spend their. own heart. it's not working dive boat that we're on right now mike ribeiro me is one of the world's national treasures for sure i'm super from leeds and i'm going to bounce i'm about to dive off a boat ready to dive there check out the amazing coral reef the bucket list which i call for you. from above the water surface the break could be a brief appearance majestic but still. the corals looking like rocks for which they

are often mistaken. it's when you get beneath the surface of the water that you are truly able to appreciate what's meant by the phrase rain forest of the sea. we're diving in the middle third of the great barrier reef which has been largely spared the devastation felt by the g.b. has northern third there are signs of bleaching but overall the reef is beautiful and full of life. for myself it's especially rewarding to see the contents of the ames mizo cozzens full life out in their natural environment. for those who seek to save the reef through science and for those whose livelihoods depend upon it the answer is no provided that action is taken if we continue on a current pathway where we're pumping c o two into the atmosphere worth it if i

mean oceans we won't have coral reefs within twenty thirty forty years from now business as usual is going to be devastating but even if we do something to to halt or to mitigate some of the impacts of climate change we're as a as a human society going to have to live with the fact that we're going to lose a lot of coral reefs all right we're going to lose a lot of color race but there's no doubt about it if we if we followed the paris agreement where we cut greenhouse gases such that temperatures don't rise above two degrees they kept well below it's estimated will still lose ninety percent of coral reefs but the important thing is that if we done. fulfill the powers agreement. they were mid century they go and i think we're going to have a good healthy rate for the next five ten years maybe even longer even if we don't do much more than what we're currently doing but if we really want to come to grips with it we're going to. we want people to think that there is some hope and there

is. there is hope i think that. is incredible in the trouble it can cause but it's also incredible in terms of the solutions and the fixes that it can find there are solutions. and the great barrier is still you know saveable most of that we can cite but we've got to start now on this with. that we've got a really good. while the great barrier reef bitchery may have been written prematurely. action on its behalf to their warnings along. with the science and society in time is something the future. will tell the techno. from the shores of the red sea story to the north of the globe and home manage the

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