Unexpected weather events and new warnings about surging global temperatures show the challenge of understanding the impact of climate change.
Examining the benefits that might flow from it are equally tricky to grasp but the work is under way.
Irish researchers are beginning to use long-term climate modelling to assess the potential effects of warming temperatures on crop growth. Early thinking indicates a potential advantage for food production in the years ahead.
Consequences for Ireland
This week, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned global temperatures are likely to surge in the next five years, with a 98 per cent chance of setting a new record.
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Exactly what global warming could mean for Ireland is not entirely clear but efforts are under way to try to peer into the future.
Researchers at Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, are running simulations through detailed Met Éireann weather modelling stretching as far as 50 years into the future to see what could be in store for grass, tillage and tree growth.
“Once we have done that, we will have a better idea of what things might look like into the future,” said John Spink, the authority’s head of environment, crops and land use programme.
“It’s really something we are only just beginning, and not just in agriculture but generally and not just in Ireland but globally. There has been much less of a focus on climate adaptation than there has been on climate mitigation.”
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The results of extreme weather events are often startlingly visible. In Italy this week, flooding killed more than a dozen people and left thousands homeless. In April, mainland Spain and Portugal broke heat records, reaching into the high 30s with the Iberian Peninsula experiencing an almost 25 per cent drop in rainfall since October.
Food security
On foot of its update report, WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas warned that rising temperatures would bring “far-reaching repercussions” for food security and water management.
As weather conditions change more drastically in other European countries, questions will arise as to potential opportunity in Ireland to grow crops that are not traditional to Irish farming.
“The viability of growing them here may change,” Mr Spink said. “One of the big restrictions that there is going to be in many of the production areas is water. And that’s not something we tend to lack … and there’s no prediction that we are going to get less water.”
Michael Wallace, professor of agriculture and food economics at University College Dublin, believes shifts in food production might benefit Ireland.
“There are considerable opportunities given our relatively favourable and relatively mild climate, which may allow us to continue to maintain production and be certainly more resilient than some other parts of the world where these extremes are going to become huge problems,” he said.
However, while such production scenarios may appear to have a silver lining quality, climate change in Ireland will present its own challenges, many of which may not yet be apparent.
In recent years, a combination of dry and wet spells has led to a greater degree of reliance on fodder, a changing aspect of farming that could bring added cost and infrastructural necessity to livestock systems.
There is also a potential issue of increased disease. According to Prof Wallace, tillage specialists are already noticing problems in combating fungal diseases, which may become more prominent in a wetter climate given they are transmitted by raindrops.
Wettest March
Most experts agree the only constant in considering the effects of climate change in Ireland is uncertainty. Early signs of climate change can be more subtle and doubt reigns as to how to interpret them.
Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland chairman Philip Hollwey stresses his lack of scientific credentials, but more than 1,300 gardeners in his organisation have begun to notice some change and are adapting their practices to suit an environmentally minded era. Even still, he too finds early patterns difficult to read.
“We have had a couple of very, very dry springs, we have all noticed that in gardens,” he said. “And yet this spring hasn’t been dry; the wettest March on record. I think one of the things we might — I am going to put ‘might’ in here — be noticing is less predictable, more strange weather events.”
There are some early indications of the effects. Niall Farrelly, a forester at Teagasc, has been monitoring bud bursts in Sitka spruce trees since 2012. Although with data still under analysis, observationally they have identified spring beginning about a week early with warmer temperatures, similar to patterns elsewhere in Europe.
“What is the negative consequences of that? It means that we might have a longer growing season in Ireland; we might be suitable for more different types of plants,” he said.
While some potential problems could arise from more extreme kinds of weather here, Ireland is unlikely to experience the kinds of forest fires beginning to emerge more frequently in Europe.
“The key message here is uncertainty,” Mr Farrelly said. “We don’t really know, but we know that climate change will bring uncertainty.”
