SYDNEY, Australia — Heron Island, a coral cay at the southern tip of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef awash in piercing sunlight and translucent seas, has been a proving ground for reef science for more than 80 years.
Because of its clear blue waters and mostly cloudless skies, Heron Island is one of a handful of sites worldwide where scientists from the United States, Bermuda and Australia have converged with a tricked-out NASA Gulfstream jet to modernize the way the world looks at its fragile coral reefs, an early warning system of a changing climate.
Image: Researchers preparing to collect data off Lizard Island, Australia, for a study of the Great Barrier Reef that will also use aerial images. Credit Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences/Jpl-Caltech, via NASA
