Worrying news…
Ireland has been badly affected by extreme weather, particularly in recent months, where status red warnings had to be issued on the back of Storm Ophelia and also for the Beast from the East.
And it looks like we’ll have to get used to the extreme weather according to the a new report from the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC).
The group is made up of 27 national science academies in the European Union, Norway, and Switzerland.
New data published this week shows that man-made climate change has resulted in increasingly frequent extreme weather events. These include events like excess rainfall leading to flooding, coastal flooding, heatwaves, and increased risks of wildfires.
According to the study published called, Extreme weather events in Europe: Preparing for climate change adaptation: an update on EASAC’s 2013 study, the new data shows that extreme weather events have increased dramatically over the last 36 years.
The study observes that “climate-related extreme events are rising, with particularly sharp rises in hydrological events.”
The entire findings are available to read here, and show the number of floods and other hydrological events have quadrupled since 1980 and have doubled since 2004.
Climatological events, such as extreme temperatures, droughts, and forest fires, have more than doubled since 1980. Meteorological events, such as storms, have doubled since 1980.
“Some of the underlying drivers of extreme weather which were speculative four years ago are looking less speculative,” said Michael Norton, environmental programme director for the EASAC.
The prospect of the Gulf Stream—also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—slowing, or even shutting down entirely, “must be taken as a serious possibility,” he added.
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