Our changing climate - Warnings we can’t ignore

IT is far easier to accept the idea of climate change than it is to imagine how our world might change because of what now seems an irreversible phenomena.

Researchers at Maynooth University have tried to put a shape on our changing world and have predicted that summers will be hotter and drier and that winters will be much stormier and wetter. They also suggest it is time for us to accept this “new normal”, and prepare for the challenges it will bring.

The trends identified are startling in their clarity and the message they convey.

The summer of 1995 was our driest and warmest on record, but the possibility of a recurrence has become 56 times more likely compared to the risk in 1900. Ireland’s wettest winter was 1994-95, but the probability of a similar winter has doubled compared to the odds in 1850.

The likelihood that the hottest summer record will be broken has jumped 250-fold. The report, published in the journal Climate Risk Management, warns that one-in-eight winters will set rainfall records by the end of the century.

Heatwaves will cause deaths and we will struggle to sustain water supplies as we alternate between prolonged drought and flooding.

These events, far more regular and of greater force than any we have endured in recent history, will limit water resources and agriculture’s capacity to continue production at current levels. It is time to make realistic preparations.