Evidence ‘storminess’ has increased as Donegal continues to face ‘sweeping of edge of the wind always coming at us’
A senior meteorologist has said there is evidence ‘storminess’ has increased after Charles Ward spoke of how Donegal has the ‘sweeping edge of the wind always coming at us whenever there is a storm’.
The Aranmore-native asked if the power of storms was increasing during a briefing of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs on the impact of climate change.
"Met Éireann suggests that Ireland may experience more extreme weather events in the future. How soon are we likely to experience them? What type of weather events will we see and what type of weather events are fishermen likely to experience?
"I am going to look at this from a Donegal perspective, because we have the sweeping edge of the wind always coming at us whenever there is a storm. Has the power of storms increased over the past 40 years?” asked the 100% Redress TD.
Dr. Tido Semmler, a Met Éireann research meteorologist, said: “As I already reported, there is evidence that storminess has increased, especially in the context of wave heights. There have been records broken, especially in the past few years. From that perspective, I can really say that there is an issue.
"We also have a project for future weather research whereby we simulate conditions when we have warmer sea surface temperatures. Some indications do tell us that storms can potentially get stronger. That said, as I explained before, there is uncertainty in this regard. These are only a few first test cases that we have been doing. There is still uncertainty in the projections. However, what I can say is that records have been broken very recently.”