Ocean acidity is likely to more than double in the next century, United Nations scientists predicted as a new report claimed greenhouse gas emissions will reach record levels this year.
Figures released at UN climate talks in Warsaw on Monday suggest that if current trends continue, the seas could be 170 per cent more acidic by the end of this century than they were in pre-industrial times.
The oceans have already acidified by 26 per cent in the past 200 years after absorbing increased levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and forming carbonic acid, but the process is now taking pace at a rate unprecedented in at least 300 million years.
Ocean acidification threatens marine species such as corals and some crustaceans by preventing them from forming shells, and lowers the seas' capacity to absorb any more carbon dioxide, meaning more greenhouse gases will remain in the atmosphere in future, scientists said.
Their comments came ahead of a separate study, published on Tuesday, which predicts that global emissions of carbon dioxide will reach a record high of 36 billion tonnes this year.
The 2.1 per cent increase for 2013 will mean that global emissions from burning fossil fuels are now 60 per cent higher than they were in 1990, the report by University of East Anglia researchers claims.
In Warsaw, UN delegates have been locked in negotiations for the past week with the ultimate aim of drawing up by 2015 a treaty to limit global greenhouse gas emissions.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said in a statement that the unprecedented rate of ocean acidification is "one of the most alarming phenomena" generated by climate change and that lowering CO2 emissions is the "only way to mitigate the dangers it represents".
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