A team of researchers are warning that global warming is accelerating faster than previously forecasted by UN experts two years ago.

Sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007, research presented March 10 at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen shows.

The three-day conference that began on Tuesday, aims to update data on global warming from a United Nations report two years ago. The conclusions of the conference will be presented to politicians meeting in Copenhagen in December to discuss a new global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

According to the Associated Press, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted sea levels would rise 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century, but based on new evidence scientists today said sea levels could rise by more than 3 feet by 2100. he The implications for 10 percent of the world's population currently living in low-lying areas would be "severe."

"It is a major change and it actually calls for action," said Professor Konrad Steffan of the University of Colorado.

Dr John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia and lead speaker in the sea level session said that most recent satellite and ground based observations show that sea-level rise is continuing to rise at 3 mm/yr or more since 1993, a rate well above the 20th century average.

"The oceans are continuing to warm and expand, the melting of mountain glacier has increased and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are also contributing to sea level rise," he added.