Climate-change station celebrates 50 years

A climate-station on the west coast of Ireland that has grown into an internationally important study centre today celebrates its 50th birthday.

Information from the Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station, near Carna, Co Galway, is used by climatologists around the world to predict global climate change.

From a modest beginning as a refurbished World War II coastal look-out post in 1958, it has become the globally acknowledged western European station for clean-air data.

Dr Thomas O’Connor, of National University of Ireland Galway’s School of Physics and one of the first scientists to collect data at Mace Head, said the centre will be very important in the years to come.

“Fifty years ago, global warming was not a household phrase. However, with Mace Head we were already following a scientific path which would put us centre stage when environmental change became a globally acknowledged issue,” he said.

“Mace Head has not only given us a unique legacy of data spanning half a century, but the station is poised to play a critical role over the next 50 years in understanding and tackling climate change”.