Ireland heating up twice as fast as rest of the world

The Irish climate is heating up at almost twice as fast as the rest of the world, an official report launched today warned.

Academics studying weather records over the past century have discovered significant differences between the island’s temperature patterns and overall global warming.

In a stark warning, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) insisted the impact can not be slowed down over the coming decades by international action.

Research carried out for the State body shows average temperatures in Ireland rising by around twice the Earth’s average over the past 50 years.

It is believed the seas around the island have been acting as a buffer which delays the arrival of global temperature patterns.

“So we’re catching up, we’re making up for lost time,” said the report’s co-author Dr John Sweeney, of Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS).

The study of meteorological records found a 0.7 degrees Celsius temperature rise overall along with more intense and frequent rainfall over the last century.

But while the rest of the world began to warm around the mid-1970s Ireland was still cooling down from the earlier part of last century until about 1981 or 1982.

“It’s really since that time that we’ve changed the corner as a country in terms of warming … and warming at roughly twice the rate of the global average,” Dr Sweeney said.

The National University of Ireland academic said the changes may not be so noticeable to most at the moment because it was happening mainly at night.

The evening temperature rise may be down to extra moisture in the air, which is forming clouds and trapping in after-dark heat.

“It’s not yet perceptible to everybody but once the day time maximum [temperature] in the summer begins to respond in the same way then we will really begin to accept climate change in Ireland big time, I’m afraid,” he said.

The climate change – expected to see 2.5 degrees Celsius higher temperatures in the summer, and slightly less than that in the winter by 2050 – will impact worst on the most populated parts of the island.

“It’s not so much the temperature which will be important for Ireland so much as the rainfall changes,” insisted Dr Sweeney.

“We’re an island that has become very dependant on an abundant supply of water.

“If that begins to pose a problem in the years ahead – especially in those parts of the country where we are putting large numbers of people, demanding large quantities of water – that’s where the crunch will probably come for Ireland, first of all.

“It will be in terms of the ability to meet municipal demand, meet agricultural demand for water in the dryer parts of the country, in the east and the south east.”

“We’re putting the people where we are getting the least water availability and also where climate change will further squeeze them in terms of less rainfall in the future.

Environment Minister John Gormley vowed to introduce several initiatives before the end of the year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as other strategies to stem global warming.

Climate change was the main reason his Green Party entered the coalition government in May, he said.

“The scientific debate is over, the evidence is incontrovertible,” he added.