A tourist dives in Australia's Great Barrier Reef in September 2014.

(WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)

Continuing to pump ever-increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere could cost the world $1 trillion every year, a new United Nations report warns, thanks to the damage done to the oceans and the ecosystems that live below the surface.

Published T hursday by the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity and titled "An Updated Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Diversity," the report says that since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution more than two centuries ago, the global ocean has absorbed more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide released by humans, from things like factories, power plants, cars and planes.

That has made the oceans more acidic – a term that refers to the change in the oceans' pH level over time, coined by Stanford University's Ken Calderia in this 2003 paper – ever since, as ocean acidification has increased by about 26 percent since the pre-industrial era.

By the end of this century, however, the report says that unless greenhouse emissions are "rapidly curtailed," that number will shoot up dramatically higher, as ocean acidification rises to 170 percent above its pre-industrial level.

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As the oceans become more acidic, carbonate levels in seawater fall. That spells big trouble for many marine animals, especially the corals that create tropical coral reefs as well as those with hard calcium carbonate shells like oysters, softshell clams, scallops and conchs.

What effect will this have on humans? Coral reefs, like Australia's Great Barrier Reef, represent major economic drivers for communities and nations that depend on them both for tourism and for fishing, as reefs provide food and habitat for many marine species.

While adaptation to high and growing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is possible for some species, the report says, what has been done to the oceans in just decades can take thousands of years to undo.

"Ecosystems that have thrived and developed over millions of years are being smashed down by human activities in just a few decades," Dr. Caldeira said in an interview with New Scientist. "It is a very sad state of affairs that hopefully we can turn around before it is too late."

Read more at New Scientist, or download the full report here.

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Russian photographer Alexander Semenov captures a close-up image of coral from the Red Sea. (Alexander Semenov)