Significant decreases in average precipitation amounts are projected for spring and summer months while the number of annual frost days is forecast to decrease by over 50% in Ireland by the middle of this century.The claim was made by the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) at an Agricultre Science Association (ASA) climate change conference this week.
Significant decreases in average precipitation amounts are projected for spring and summer months while the number of annual frost days is forecast to decrease by over 50% in Ireland by the middle of this century.
The claim was made by the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) at an Agricultre Science Association (ASA) climate change conference this week.
“We found that rainfall is projected to decrease for all seasons except winter, where signal is uncertain,” said Paul Nolan, a computational scientist who has spent three years analysing regional climate models (RCMs).
“90% of the RCMs agreed summer is expected to be drier while heavy rainfall events are projected to increase. During autumn the number of wet days (over 30mm), heavy rainfall events will rise by 20% to 30%.”
What we saw over this winter and over the last few winters, these are projected to increase by mid-century. While there will be a 10% reduction in the number of storms, extreme storms are projected to hit Ireland more in the future.
ICHEC said they are willing to share and collaborate with experts in the agricultural field to help feed their results into future policy.
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