Ireland leads study on global warming

SCIENTISTS from the National University of Ireland, Galway, are leading one of the world’s largest studies into how microscopic marine plants might affect the earth’s climate, it emerged yesterday.

The project aims to find out how dense blooms of tiny plankton in the ocean might enrich bursting bubbles at the surface with organic matter, leading to more stable clouds above the ocean and decreasing global warming.

The Marine Aerosol Production (MAP) project has a total budget of €3 million and is coordinated by Dr Colin O’Dowd from the Environmental Change Institute and Department of Physics at NUI, Galway.

The MAP project will use NUI, Galway’s Mace Head Atmospheric Monitoring Station in Co Galway, the Marine Institute’s state-of-the-art research vessel RV Celtic Explorer and NASA’s satellite sensors to make the required observations.

The project has assembled a team of 25 research groups from 20 institutes in Europe and the US.

They will spend four weeks making measurements at Mace Head and on the Celtic Explorer, and the next two years analysing the gathered data, before putting the key findings into climate prediction models.

“Aerosol particles form haze and cloud layers that can hide the effect of global warming,” said Dr O’Dowd.

“Quantifying the sources of aerosols and their global cooling effects will enable better future controls on greenhouse gas emissions in order to reduce the rate of global warming.”

Marine Institute chief executive Dr Peter Heffernan said the project highlights the strategic importance of Ireland as a natural laboratory for studying the dynamics and impacts of climate change.

“We are lucky to have world-class research vessels such as the Celtic Explorer to support internationally recognised Irish research groups such as Dr O’Dowd’s and enable them to take their rightful place as leaders of important projects such as MAP,” he added.

MAP is primarily funded by the European Commission with significant grant aid towards the cost of the vessel being provided through the National Research Vessel Shiptime Programme of the National Development Plan.

The Celtic Explorer set sail to track the north Atlantic plankton blooms and their role in aerosol production on Sunday, June 11, after a week of work in Cobh shipyard.