Introduction to TRANSLATE
The TRANSLATE project is a Met Éireann lead initiative to standardise future climate projections for Ireland and develop climate services that meet the climate information needs of decision makers. TRANSLATE focuses on reviewing existing climate models to produce a national set of standardised climate projections. Climate services are then developed from these standardised climate projections to aid climate risk decision making across multiple sectors (for example, transport, energy, water). Climate services can be described as a set of services that communicate climate science data/information into products (for example, indices, risk assessments, uncertainty estimates) tailored to meet climate sensitive decision makers.
TRANSLATE aims to:
- Produce standardised national climate projections for Ireland.
- Co-develop climate services, implementing TRANSLATE’s standardised projections, to meet the climate information needs of the Irish adaptation sector.
- Provide information and documentation that informs the standardisation of cross-sectoral decision making for climate sensitive sectors.
- Ensure that standardised projections, summary information and climate services are easily accessible and useful to all potential users.
Developing standardised national climate projections
TRANSLATE examines many different climate models that cover Ireland to capture the range of possible future climates. These models are then combined with high-resolution historical observations from Met Éireann to produce the most up to date picture of Ireland’s changing climate.
TRANSLATE follows best international practices for combining multiple climate simulations (CH2018) and conducts statistical techniques to provide a range of future climate projections for Ireland. Using these statistical techniques, TRANSLATE can improve the accuracy and resolution of existing climate projections. Outputs consist of 30-year daily projections over a range of different scenarios. These are then used to compute climate indices (for example, heat-wave frequency). TRANSLATE’s enhanced climate projections and climate indices can support Irish decision makers through climate services.
Developing Climate services
In January 2022, a workshop was held to identify the needs of the Irish adaptation sector and Irish climate service users. Requirements and tools were identified to support sector specific climate adaptation planning (for example, sector relevant climate indicators). The workshop’s outputs included:
- A list of climate indicators, especially related to wind, temperature and precipitation, that provide meaningful and actionable information to climate sensitive sectors.
- A list of vulnerability (for example, population density, deprivation indices, economic value of risk) and exposure (for example, Residential/non-residential properties, community infrastructure) metrics were compiled informed by participant needs.
Following the TRANSLATE workshop, a review of international climate services was conducted which continues to support TRANSLATE’s climate services development. Insights from the workshop and climate services review are being incorporated into the development of relevant climate indicators, metrics and other climate services. Prototype data sets (for example, climate indices, vulnerability and exposure metrics) are currently under development, as are tools that will address stakeholder and cross-sectoral needs for climate risk decision making.
The TRANSLATE project team largely comprises of climate researchers from NUI Galway – Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) and University College Cork – SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine (MaREI), supported by Met Éireann climatologists.
The TRANSLATE project is steered by experts from The Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC), The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NUI Maynooth – The Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS), The Marine Institute (MI), The Local Authority Climate Action Regional Offices (CAROs) the UK Met Office (UKMO) and Met Éireann.
Outputs from Met Éireann’s TRANSLATE project will become available from early 2023.
For further information contact enquiries@met.ie
Page last updated 30 June 2022