"We need to start moving people and key infrastructure away from our coasts," warns climate scientist
"We need to start moving people and key infrastructure away from our coasts," warns climate scientist
Ireland is going to have to move property and key infrastructure such as railway lines away from coastal areas due to climate breakdown, according to Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) first chair of climate science Prof Karen Wiltshire.
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Ireland has a long coastline but most of it near mountains, so there is fortunately scope to gradually retreat uphill. The large flat part is in the middle - the central Shannon basin is only 35m above sea-level, but unless East Antarctica goes too, that's safe for the moment. As for temperature rise, it's a cool country that may expect relatively little warming, due to the cold blob south of greenland, at least while ice continues melting. So, Ireland may need to prepare for large influx of people escaping heat elsewhere.
Until the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation stops, plunging Ireland's temperatures by an average of 15°
It slows down, an effect of cold water from melting ice passing south of greenland, which has a local cooling effect, while the atlantic as a whole gets warmer. Consequence is a greater heat contrast along that front, which may intensify the sequence of low pressures bringing wind and rain, which is what Ireland has just experienced this summer. But the high-resolution models do not show that AMOC stops abruptly, that was a feature of simpler models designed to replicate palaeoclimatic changes at the end of the ice ages, when the amount of ice available to melt was much higher.
As a Canadian with Irish grandparents I look forward to claiming my Irish citizenship.
15° cooler (C or F) would be lovely.
I should have clarified 15°C, which would be a shift of 27°F. It's hard to overstate how devastating that would be to the ecology of Northern Europe, potentially sending Ireland near permafrost territory and ending agriculture and pastoralism as they know it
Yeah there's a bit to go before the sea goes over the cliffs of Moher for sure.