Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Minister Creed has welcomed the announcement of €2 million in funding from the Marine Institute and the European Regional Development Fund for a major project on Atlantic climate change led by Dr Gerard McCarthy of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University.
The project aims to improve the understanding of the links between trends in Atlantic temperatures and climate change. It will be supported by Professor Peter Thorne, Director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University, Professor Andrew Parnell, Dr Niamh Cahill, Dr Conor Murphy, and Dr Rowan Fealy, at Maynooth University.
Maynooth’s lead team will utilise approximately two-thirds of a total €2 million funding with the balance utilised by co-investigators in Trinity College Dublin, led by Dr Robin Edwards.
The project team will use advanced geological techniques to reconstruct Ireland’s sea level, and combine these estimates with the modern National Tide Gauge Network managed by the Marine Institute, to better understand how sea levels have been changing around Ireland and the edges of the Atlantic.
The A4 project will bring the field of ‘decadal climate prediction’ to Ireland. This emerging field hopes to lead to improved estimates of the future climate over the period of a decade by using the predictability of the ocean.
Welcoming the project, Minister Creed said, "This funding being provided will enable Maynooth University to increase the research capacity to broaden Ireland’s knowledge at a societal level, to better understand the ocean and climate change. The research will contribute to national climate adaptation as well as international climate policy, supporting enhanced forecasting capabilities and contributing to adaptation and mitigation strategies and actions."
Vice President for Innovation at Maynooth University, Professor Ray O’Neill added, "This major funding award reflects the global significance of the climate science research being undertaken at the ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University. Enabled by this funding, Gerard McCarthy’s expertise, and that of his national and international partners, will significantly advance understanding of how Ireland and the Atlantic region more broadly will be affected by climate change in the years ahead."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
