The reef is over half a million years old. The water has been warmer. The water has been colder. The seas have been deeper. The seas have been more shallow. There have been ups and downs.
In the past, lasers have not been needed to make everything “okay”.
C’mon, man. Follow the grant money.
100% correct. The reef will migrate both North and South seeking its ideal temperature. The coral polyps will also genetically change over eons to evolve to adjust to warmer or colder conditions. Do not worry about the reef. It survived he Middle Age Maximum in 750 to 1350 AD when temperatures were about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today. London existed then. London is from slightly above sea level to about 45 feet. There are no records of flooding in London during the Middle Ages.
Oddly if geological history repeats itself London will flood. The normal state of the Earth is Ice Age with brief interludes of warmth we now enjoy and life flourishes. Cold kills and the Sharaa desert is a plain of plenty.
We may be at the end of the ice age and sea levels will increase and flood low lying coastal cities over hundreds of years. We will slowly retreat as our cities have already fallen by age on the coast. We may be at the end of a warming period in an ice age (by defintion an ice age is over when the polar caps have melted in the past thus we are still in an ice age) or we could well be going back into full ice age. Geologically speaking from history, we will be going back into an ice age. Cold Kills.