Sea level rise is fuelled by melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica
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The world's sea levels could rise twice as high this century as UN climate scientists have previously predicted, according to a study.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposes a maximum sea level rise of 81cm (32in) this century.
But in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers say the true maximum could be about twice that: 163cm (64in).
They looked at what happened more than 100,000 years ago - the last time Earth was this warm.
The results join other studies showing that current sea level projections may be very conservative.
Sea level rise is a key effect of global climate change. There are two major contributory effects: expansion of sea water as the oceans warm, and the melting of ice over land.
clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk