The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research said on Tuesday the rate at which sea levels wererising had doubled compared to two years ago.

The committee said new research suggested there could be a 1.4m rise in the next 90 years, which would spell destruction for coastal and low- lying regions around the world.

SCAR’s Collin Summerhaze said previous predictions were based on studies that did not take a range of specific factors into account.

“What they ignored was the fact that ice is coming off Antarctica in glaciers, that the spped of the ice retreat is increasing and that a lot of this information was not known very well at the time,” he explained.