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Project title

Ireland's Contribution to CMIP6 and High-Res Regional Climate Projections for Ireland

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

Marine Institute - Met Eireann

Lead Organisation

National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG)

Lead Applicant

Paul Nolan

Project Abstract

The first component of the research will involve running and analysing an ensemble of EC-Earth production runs which will comprise Ireland�s contribution to CMIP6. CMIP6 will provide a framework for coordinated climate change experiments for the next number of years and thus will include simulations for assessment in the U.N. IPCC AR6 reports. A second component of the research involves simulating climate change in Ireland (and Europe through the CORDEX project) at high spatial resolution using both atmosphere-only and coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave RCMs. The research will greatly expand on previous EPA-funded research which shows large uncertainty in certain climate projections such as annual precipitation and wind speeds. Since extreme events such as flooding and storms are likely to be a critical issue for Ireland under climate change, it is important to address this issue. This will be achieved by employing state-of-the-art atmosphere-only and coupled RCMs, CMIP6 GCMs and the RCP scenarios to simulate the future climate of Ireland. Additionally, the accuracy and usefulness of the model predictions will be enhanced by increasing model resolution and ensemble size. The research will provide policy makers and planners with high-quality, high-resolution and robust projections, enabling them to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Grant Approved

�349,188.00

Research Hub

Climate Change

Research Theme

Ireland's Future Climate, its Impacts, and Adaptation Options

Start Date

01/04/2019

Initial Projected Completion Date

31/03/2022