By Matt McGrath'
Melting in Greenland and Antarctica is contributing significantly to sea level rise
It will be the clearest declaration yet on how an overheating world is hammering our oceans and frozen regions. (click here)
Scientists have been meeting in Monaco to finalise a report on the seas and the cryosphere.
Published tomorrow, September it will outline how the oceans have been our best friend in coping with rising temperatures.
But it will warn that warming is turning the seas into a huge potential threat to humanity.
Researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were encouraged by Prince Albert II and the Monaco government in 2015 to produce a special report on the oceans and cryosphere - the earth's surface where water is frozen solid.
For the past three years, the scientists have been reviewing hundreds of published papers on how climate change affects the seas, the poles and glaciers.
Their report will track the flow of water from the frozen tops of mountains to the bottom of the seas, and how this is changing in a warmer world.
findings with government representatives that will be published on Wednesday.
It will likely detail the growing threat from rising sea levels that could imperil hundreds of millions of people before the end of this century.
It will also warn of the threat posed by the growing acidification of the seas, the threats to coral and fisheries and the possibility that warming might melt permafrost, releasing huge amounts of the CO2 gas that's the key to rising temperatures.
"At current emissions rates, we are effectively dumping one million tonnes of CO2 into the oceans every hour," said Melissa Wang, a scientist with Greenpeace.
"Unless we accelerate efforts to curb carbon emissions and take greater steps to protect our oceans, there will be devastating human, environmental and economic consequences."
