The below image shows changes in the Jakobshavn Glacier calving front between 1851 and 2006 in western Greenland.

Scientists from the University of Buffalo report that the sea level rise estimated this century could be twice as high as current projections based on new research involving new techniques in gathering ice sheet datasets.

The team found important details about the Greenland Ice sheet which have long been missing from the ice sheet models in which sea level rise and global warming are based.

The use of remote sensing and digital imaging techniques can produce rich datasets without field data and give ice sheet modelers more precise, detailed data, according to the ScienceDaily story.

Traditional ice sheet models are very simplified, according to Dr. Beata Csatho, assistant professor of Geology at UB and the lead author of the study. "Ice sheet models usually don't include all the complexity of ice dynamics that can happen in nature. If current climate models from the IPCC included data from ice dynamics in Greenland, the sea level rise estimated during this century could be twice as high as what they are currently projecting," she said.

The research paper, which was just published in the Journal of Glaciology focuses on Jakobshavn Isbrae, Greenland's fastest moving glacier and its largest, measuring four miles wide.

The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier has experienced rapid thinning and has doubled the amount of ice it discharges into Disko Bay during the past decade. The thinning started as early as the end of the 18th century, but the changes that the researchers are seeing are now bigger than can be accounted for by normal, annual perturbations in climate, according to Dr. Csatho.