We're reaping what we have all sown, says climate expert
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Friday November 27 2009
Ireland's top climate change expert says "we have reaped what we have in sown" in the floods that have afflicted the south and west of the country in the past 10 days.
Nobel-prize winning climatologist, Prof John Sweeney, said yesterday: "While no single event can be attributed to human induced climate change, changes in extremes such as flood events are to be expected as global climate changes."
The NUI Maynooth expert pointed out that, per capita, Ireland is one of the principal contributors to climate change, as we have greater greenhouse emissions than Germany, France and Britain on that basis.
However, Prof Sweeney added: "Of course in absolute terms our contribution is tiny."
He was one of hundreds of climatologists that formed part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Panel (IPCC) that won the Nobel Peace prize in 2007 with former US vice president, Al Gore.
Prof Sweeney was also the lead author of a report published earlier this year by the Environmental Protection Agency about the impact climate change is having on Ireland. The report estimates the country's winter rainfall will rise by 10pc within 40 years.
"Floods have always been with us and we can't point the finger at any human agency, but the effects of climate change will mean that events like this will become more frequent."
He said that the last comparable sustained rainfall event in south-western Ireland occurred in 1986.
Waterlogged
"The rainfall was more extensive in 1986, but the effects of the rainfall on this occasion have been more widespread because the ground was already moist and waterlogged."
He characterised the current rainfall as a one-in-30-years event, but with the effects of climate change, the current event will be a one-in-ten-year event by mid-century.
He said that in some parts of the West it has rained in each of the last 30 days.
Admitting to be surprised at the extent of the flooding, Prof Sweeney said that "serious lessons must be learned from this".
He said: "There needs to be more care on where we build new infrastructure and new housing.
"I have been quite struck in the last number of days by the number of modern housing estates I have seen flooded that are located on flood plains."
- Gordon Deegan
Irish Independent
