A leading climatologist and professor at Maynooth University has warned that Ireland will eventually see similar effects of climate change like other European countries, amid a third summer of heatwaves across the continent.
John Sweeney is a Climatologist and Professor Emeritus, and he told Newstalk that this is the third European heatwave in as many years. He said: “We’re embarking on this third European heatwave this summer, and we’re getting a taste of it here in Ireland. It’s been a very sticky night for most people and even as late as 1:00 am the temperature at Dublin Airport was still at 20C and it’s only gone down to about 17C overnight.
“So, we’re in exceptional circumstances, but in Europe of course, it is now much more extreme than that with temperatures at around 42C to 45C in the South of Spain. We can say, how often does that heatwave that we might get over the next few weeks occur now, compared to how it would have occurred in pre-industrial times.”
Speaking about how advancements in technology in recent years have helped us to learn more about climate change and its effects on our planet, Professor Sweeney said that it is "alarming" that most recent statistics are showing that heatwaves are now 100 times more likely because of climate change.
He explained: "What comes out is very alarming indeed because, for most of the kind of typical heatwaves we’ve had in Europe over the past three or four years, we’re getting values of ten to 100 times more likely as a consequence of global climate change occurring.
“So the kind of events we're now seeing in Europe - this summer in particular - are the kind of events that are more extreme firstly than we would have had before we started messing up the atmosphere. But they are also events that are going to occur much much more frequently in the future," added Professor Sweeney.
Professor Sweeney also referred to a recent report published by the UK Met Office following their heatwave in 2018, and how heatwaves in UK are now thirty times more likely to occur there alone. He said: "So, we’re paying the price for climate change, even here in Ireland of course, we’re seeing signs of that occurring with extremes.
“But we haven’t yet seen the kind of major events that we’ve seen in the monsoon regions of India this summer, and the floods in Australia." According to Professor Sweeney, in the coming years Ireland is set to experience the effects of clime change down the road which will "bring home the cost of climate change in a big way.”
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