What is happening with our weather?
Quite a lot. For many people, 2022 is the year climate change manifested itself. After a generally dry and warm spring and summer, the autumn has been very mild and very wet: five Met Éireann weather stations logged their warmest Octobers on record; last month also saw record rainfall in many parts of Ireland. That pattern has continued in the western half of the country, with many places already exceeding half of the normal rainfall for November only a third of the way through the month. “It has been an exceptionally warm autumn in Europe, and we are part of that heating,” says Evelyn Cusack, Met Éireann’s head of forecasting.
What is causing the wet autumn?
The warmer atmosphere is producing more moisture and more rain, says Cusack, who adds that the sea has reached summer-like temperatures of 13 degrees, five above normal for the time of year. This is helping to make not only the days but also the nights unusually warm: temperatures in parts of the west did not drop below 15 degrees between midnight and dawn on Thursday this week. Shannon Airport recorded the highest ever minimum temperature for a November night. Between 9pm on Thursday night and 9am on Friday morning the temperature did not drop below 15.5 degrees and peaked at 17 degrees. The ground remains saturated and even a little extra rain can lead to flooding. This is why Met Éireann has been issuing more weather alerts recently. The organisation says it is moving towards “impact-based” weather warnings to reflect not just what weather is on the way but the effect it will have.
Is this all part of climate change?
Most certainly, according to the Met Éireann climatologist Sandra Spillane. “We know climate change is happening now and is human-caused. As our planet warms, so does our atmosphere,” she says. “Warmer air has the ability to hold more moisture. In Ireland, average annual rainfall has increased by about 6 per cent over the last 30 years compared to the previous 30 years.” Cusack adds that, although there is a lot of natural variation at Ireland’s latitude, temperatures here have risen by a degree in the past 100 years.
What are the implications?
As well as seeing more rain, we could experience more droughts, according to a high-resolution forecast for Ireland that the climatologists Paul Nolan and Jason Flanagan published two years ago, providing a detailed account of how global warming will affect the country until the middle of the century. They explained that “the projections of increased variability of the precipitation climate will have adverse implications for society – eg droughts, flooding, water management and housing – and sectors of the economy, such as agriculture. Furthermore, the increase in frequency of both droughts and heavy rainfall events could be detrimental to potential gains of a warming climate to the agricultural sector.”
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What does the Government say?
Most immediately, it has warned that flooding is now the biggest threat to Irish communities – and that, over time, people will need to move from areas that “simply cannot be protected”, according to Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works. Wexford has seen significant flooding this month, surface flooding seems to now be a common occurrence in Cork city, and some householders on the shores of Lough Funshinagh, in Co Roscommon, have already left the area after five years of flooding in a row.
Speaking at the launch of the Government’s Be Winter Ready campaign, O’Donovan said that the “planning process cannot keep up with climate change” and that flood-relief measures may not come in time for affected communities, as some are being delayed by planning issues or judicial reviews.
“Last year we saw an unusually mild and unsettled winter – and, according to Met Éireann’s data, the sixth-warmest one in 123 years,” his colleague Minister of State for Transport Hildegarde Naughton said. “We experienced six named storms between December and February, the most disruptive being Storm Barra and Storm Eunice.” Keeping national and regional routes open this winter will be a priority, she said.
