Climate Change

Met Éireann’s work on Climate Change

In this series of three short videos, we outline Met Éireann’s work in measuring our past and current climate, as well as our role in helping to predict Ireland’s future climate. We highlight the cooperation that is required at a National, European and Global level when it comes to climate science. And by knowing how much our climate is likely to change by, we examine how this knowledge helps Ireland make important decisions now.

Video 1:

What role does Met Éireann play in helping to make Ireland more climate prepared?

Video 2:

How do we know Ireland’s climate is changing?

Want to help monitor Ireland’s climate and contribute to measuring climate change?

Video 3:

What will Ireland’s future climate look like, and by knowing this how does this help us now?

 

Climate change refers to long-term changes in the earth’s weather patterns or average temperature. Interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, land masses and vegetation create the climate system. Changes in climate can arise naturally from long-term cycles in the earth’s orbit. El Niño/La Niña events, in which interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere cause temperature changes lasting a number of years is another example of natural variability. Since the mid-nineteenth century a rise has occurred in the average global temperature; the rate of change in recent times cannot be explained by natural causes alone. This has be shown by running sophisticated computer models of the earth’s climate system, known as earth system models, which only reproduce observed rises in temperature when the effects due greenhouse gases and aerosols are included [1].

 

 

Further Reading, Links and References

  1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2013: available at https://www.ipcc.ch/
  2. Nolan, P. 2015. EPA Report: Ensemble of Regional Climate Model Projections for Ireland. EPA climate change research report no. 159. EPA: Wexford.
  3. O’Sullivan, J., Sweeney, C., Nolan, P. and Gleeson, E., 2015. A high-resolution, multi-model analysis of Irish temperatures for the mid-21st century. International Journal of Climatology. doi: 10.1002/joc.4419.
  4. Gleeson, E., McGrath, R. & M, Treanor, eds. 2013. Ireland’s climate: the road ahead. Dublin, Ireland: Met Éireann [Online].
  5. Nolan, P., O’Sullivan, J., & McGrath, R. (2017). Impacts of climate change on mid‐twenty‐first‐century rainfall in Ireland: a high‐resolution regional climate model ensemble approach. International Journal of Climatology.
  6. Dwyer N. 2012. The Status of Ireland’s Climate, 2012. Dwyer N (ed). CCRP Report No. 26. EPA, Wexford, Ireland.
  7. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) available at http://newsroom.unfccc.int/.
  8. Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) available at http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/gcos/index.php.
  9. Caffarra, A., F. Zottele, E. Gleeson, and A. Donnelly. “Spatial Heterogeneity in the Timing of Birch Budburst in Response to Future Climate Warming in Ireland.” International Journal of Biometeorology 58, no. 4 (September 15, 2014): 509–19. doi: 10.1007/s00484-013-0720-5.
  10. McCarthy, G., E. Gleeson, and S. Walsh. “The Influence of Ocean Variations on the Climate of Ireland.” Weather 70, no. 8 (2015): 242–245. doi: 10.1002/wea.2543.