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Climate change exhibits a clear trend of escalating frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, posing heightened risks to drainage systems along the existing road networks. However, very few studies to date have investigated the consequences of projected future changes in rainfall on main road drainage and the resulting risk of road flooding. The work presented in this paper builds on the limited research by introducing a probabilistic model for assessing the impact of climate change on road drainage systems, incorporating climate uncertainty and drainage system variation. The probabilistic scenario-based model and associated framework offer a practical and innovative method for estimating the impact of short-duration storms under future climates for 2071-2100, in the absence of fine-resolution spatio-temporal data. The model also facilitates the assessment of the effectiveness of a climate adaptation strategy. An illustrative case-study of a road drainage system located in the south of Ireland is presented. It was found that the probability of road flooding during intense rainfall is projected to surpass the current acceptable limits set by Irish standards. Assessment of a proactive climate adaptation strategy implemented in 2015 indicated it may need to be adjusted to further reduce climate change impacts and optimise adaptation costs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background In an earlier paper from 2019, this author concluded that successful eradication of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) from Ireland by 2030 would be unlikely, given control strategies in place at that time plus the addition of badger vaccination. He argued that additional measures will be needed, broadly focusing on bTB risks from wildlife, risk-based cattle controls, and industry commitment. This paper considers these points in further detail. Main text Ongoing monitoring of the badger vaccination programme (which is progressively being rolled out nationally) and associated research will be critical, with a focus both on programme inputs and outcomes. The direct contribution of cattle movements to bTB restrictions in Ireland has been evaluated. However, it is the indirect role of cattle movements in bTB restrictions that is likely of greater importance, particularly towards the latter phase of the eradication programme. In other national programmes, a range of risk-based approaches have been used to address the challenge of residual infection in cattle (that is, the presence of animals with persistent but undetected infection), and similar approaches are needed in Ireland. A number of authors have highlighted the critical importance of industry commitment to programme success, and the key role of programme governance to achieving this. In this commentary, the author briefly considers experiences from Australia and New Zealand in this regard. The author also reflects on the challenge of uncertainty in decision-making, the relevance to Ireland of lessons from other countries, and the potential contribution of new methodologies in support of the national programme. Conclusions 'The tragedy of the horizon' was a term first used in the context of climate change, referring to the costs imposed on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentives to fix. This concept is equally relevant to bTB eradication in Ireland, where current decisions will have long-term consequences for future generations, including both the general public (through the Exchequer) and future Irish farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drained peatlands are significant hotspots of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and may also be more vulnerable to fire with its associated gaseous emissions. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from peatlands managed for extraction are reported on an annual basis. However, the Tier 1 (default) emission factors (EFs) provided in the IPCC 2013 Wetlands Supplement for this land use category may not be representative in all cases and countries are encouraged to move to higher Tier reporting levels with reduced uncertainty levels based on country or regional specific data. In this study, we quantified (1) CO2-C emissions from 9 peat extraction sites in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, which were initially disaggregated by land use type (industrial vs. domestic peat extraction), and (2) a range of GHGs that are released to the atmosphere with the burning of peat. CO2-C emissions were strongly controlled by soil temperature at the industrial sites (bare peat), and by soil temperature and leaf area index at the vegetated domestic sites. Our derived EFs of 1.70 (±0.47) and 1.64 (±0.44) tCO2-C ha-1 yr-1 for the industrial and domestic sites respectively, are considerably lower than the Tier 1 EF (2.8 ±1.7 tCO2-C ha-1 yr-1) provided in the Wetlands Supplement. We propose that the difference between our derived values and the Wetlands Supplement value is due to differences in peat quality and, consequently, decomposition rates. Emissions from burning of the peat (g kg-1 dry fuel burned) were estimated to be approximately 1346 (CO2), 8.35 (methane, CH4), 218 (carbon monoxide, CO), 1.53 (ethane, C2H6), 1.74 (ethylene, C2H4), 0.60 (methanol, CH3OH), 2.21 (hydrogen cyanide, HCN) and 0.73 (ammonia, NH3) and emphasises the importance of understanding the full suite of trace gas emissions from biomass burning, rather than focussing solely on CO2 and CH4 emissions. Our results highlight the importance of generating reliable Tier 2 values for different regions and land-use categories. Furthermore, given that the IPCC Tier 1 EF was only based on 20 sites (all from Canada/Fenno-Scandia) we suggest that data from another 9 sites significantly expands the global dataset, as well as adding a new region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Methaodos: Social Science Journal / Methaodos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicacion y Sociologia, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Climate change and land-use changes are projected to make wildfires more frequent and intense, with a global increase of extreme fires of up to 14 % by 2030, 30 % by the end of 2050 and 50 % by the end of the century (Sullivan et al., 2022). This latest information has increased interest of how the large scale, often catastrophic, events can be reduced and more effectively managed. One critical area revolves around real-time fire line prediction and how resources can be better deployed to reduce the propagation of wildfires. This paper explores mathematical models for fire propagation on a fully configurable grid using the Irregular Grid Software (IGS) developed. The configurable grid allows cross comparison of both regular grids such as square, hexagonal, triangular, and irregular grids such as a randomly seeded Voronoi diagram and a flammable resolution grid (FRG). The FRG is adapted to focus attention on areas of higher importance which provides greater precision at the cost of extra computing time. The irregular grid approach and ForeFire, an existing industry standard program were compared. The comparison included simulations of wildfires located in the Wicklow Mountains, in Ireland, a region used by the fire services for exercises. The performance of the grid-based techniques was examined using a set of experiments to characterise the model's response to key factors such as wind, elevation, and fuel type. The results show that the IGS runs on average 34 times quicker than ForeFire while retaining an average result similarity of 80% with ForeFire. In this paper sections 1 and 2 will give an overview on existing research on wildfires and wildfire modelling. Section 3 will describe the resources that were necessary to model wildfire propagation. Section 4 explains how these resources were used to build the IGS. Section 5 compares different gird types produced using the IGS, while section 6 compares the IGS to ForeFire. Sections 7 and 8 discus these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managed retreat is increasingly advocated as a means to promote resilience and adaptation to climate change. However, there are various uncertainties and challenges associated with the impacts of displacement and attachments to place. In this context, it is useful to study past examples of relocation to understand how these challenges have been addressed. This paper draws on a case study relocation scheme which took place in Ireland following major flooding in 1954. This represented a radical and comprehensive approach to relocation which sought to address the root causes of vulnerability. The analysis shows that this comprehensive approach was made possible through a connection between managed retreat and land reform. The scheme also faced opposition linked to attachments to place and property. This led to compromises and a failure to fully address the effects of flooding on livelihoods but contributed to resilience through ensuring that family and community ties remained intact. The paper's distinctive contributions are its analysis of the requirements of transformative approaches to adaptation and relocation, its identification of challenges associated with place and property even in the context of such transformative approaches, and its adding of historical depth to contemporary debates on climate adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalizing connections that defined the European Bronze Age in the second millennium BC either ended or abruptly changed in the decades around 1200 BC. The impact of climate change at 3.2 ka on such social changes has been debated for the eastern Mediterranean. This paper extends this enquiry of shifting human–climate relationships during the later Bronze Age into Europe for the first time. There, climate data indicate that significant shifts occurred in hydroclimate and temperatures in various parts of Europe ca. 3.2 ka. To test potential societal impacts, I review and evaluate archaeological data from Ireland and Britain, the Nordic area, the Carpathian Basin, the Po Valley, and the Aegean region in parallel with paleoclimate data. I argue that 1200 BC was a turning point for many societies in Europe and that climate played an important role in shaping this. Although long-term trajectories of sociopolitical systems were paramount in defining how and when specific societies changed, climate change acted as a force multiplier that undermined societal resilience in the wake of initial social disjunctures. In this way, it shaped, often detrimentally, the reconfiguration of societies. By impacting more directly on social venues of political recovery, realignment, and reorganization, climate forces accentuate societal crises and, in some areas, sustained them to the point of sociopolitical collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of climate change are multiple and fundamental. Decisions made today may result in irreversible damage to the planet's biodiversity and ecosystems, the detrimental impacts of which will be borne by today's children, young people and those yet unborn (future generations). The use of citizens' assemblies (CAs) to tackle the issue of climate change is growing. Their remit is future focused. Yet is the future in the room? Focusing on a single case study, the recent Irish CA and Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action (JOCCA) deliberations on climate action, this paper explores the extent to which children, young people and future generations were included. Its systemic analysis of the membership of both institutions, the public submissions to them and the invited expertise presented, finds that the Irish CA was 'too tightly coupled' on this issue. This may have been beneficial in terms of impact, but it came at the expense of input legitimacy and potentially intergenerational justice. Referring to international developments, it suggests how these groups may be included through enclave deliberation, institutional innovations, design experiments and future-oriented practice.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are increasing pressures on firms to adjust to the major global challenges of climate change and rapid developments in digital technologies. To date, the impacts of these two challenges on firms have largely been examined as separate issues. However there are suggestions of overlap, with the potential of digital technologies to help economies and firms shift to greener production methods. This paper provides a novel contribution to this literature on a "twin transition" by examining for the first time the overlap at a firm level between climate actions and digitalisation. The data are drawn from a large-scale survey of 3,000 firms in Ireland in 2020. The report includes novel questions on energy use, climate adaption priorities and digital strategies along with a wide range of firm characteristics. Our key outcome variables are the degree of digitalisation in the firm, if it has a climate plan and does it implement climate actions such as monitoring emissions. We find considerable overlap between having a climate and a digital plan in place across firms, while controlling for a range of other firm characteristics. At the same time, we find a reasonably large share of firms have positive attitudes to the importance of climate planning but without reporting corresponding concrete actions, suggesting a gap for policy to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrometeorological droughts are complex hazards expressed through the relative deviation in water availability relative to long‐term average conditions. The development and propagation of drought is governed by hydrological processes at different spatial scales including precipitation, evapotranspiration, overland flow, soil moisture, groundwater storage and discharge. Detailed investigation is thus required to evaluate associated linkages among various types of hydrometeorological drought to understand the likely impacts of climate change on drought characteristics (magnitude, frequency, duration and propagation). This study explores the impact of climate change on hydrometeorological drought for 10 Irish catchments, using standardized drought indices representing different components of the hydrological system. We employ 12 Global Climate Models from the Coupled Model Inter‐comparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), forced with SSP370 and bias corrected to catchment conditions to force a conceptual hydrological model to generate hydrological projections for each catchment. The results indicate substantial drying during summer with associated increases in summer drought magnitude and frequency. However, simulations show a wide range of change, especially for hydrological drought (discharge and baseflow). Only modest changes in the magnitude and frequency of hydrological drought events were found, with increases in winter and spring precipitation offsetting summer dryness. Similarly, the probability of meteorological drought propagating to hydrological events (Standardized Streamflow Index/Standardized Baseflow Index), shows modest increases under the climate change projections considered. Findings highlight that drought, especially during summer are a critical climate change risk for adaptation. Plain Language Summary: Climate change aggravates the impact of hydrometeorological droughts on water availability and distribution in Ireland. Rainfall, evaporation, overland flow, soil moisture, groundwater storage, and the size and strength of discharges are the main factors that cause drought extent and duration. Therefore, for the sustainable development of ecosystems and water resources in a country, it is a requirement to evaluate associated linkages among various types of hydrometeorological drought to understand the likely impacts of climate change on drought characteristics (magnitude) and propagation. This paper explores the impact of climate change on hydrometeorological drought for 10 Irish catchments. The findings indicate significant summer drying, as well as increases in the magnitude and frequency of summer droughts. The probability of meteorological drought propagating to hydrological events, shows modest increases under the climate change projections considered. Drought, particularly during the summer, is a critical climate change risk for adaptation, according to the findings. Key Points: Changes in hydrometeorological drought characteristics under changing climate conditions were estimated; and the results indicate substantial drying during summer with associated increases in summer drought magnitude and frequencyIncreases in winter and spring precipitation result in a decrease in the frequency and magnitude of drought events outside summer and are critical for maintaining baseflow during summer. This also raises the risk of extreme droughts for a dry winter/springThe probability of drought propagation from meteorological to hydrological events increases for the 2050s but decreases for the end of century, highlighting the importance of increases in winter and spring precipitation to drought risk [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For national governments to meet their international climate change obligations they need to develop and implement plans that involve coordinating the actions of local, regional and national level actors from across multiple sectors. When this occurs, it can lead to the formation of a policy implementation network. Surprisingly, there is a limited understanding of the characteristics of the members of such networks, the structure of the multi‐level and cross‐sectoral ties among them, and about how they relate to how these networks are governed. This paper initiates the development of such knowledge by calculating a variety of network statistics to analyse the policy implementation network formed to carry out Ireland's signature climate policy—The Climate Action Plan 2019. Results show that national level actors dominate, and that cross‐level and cross‐sectoral collaboration are limited. The plan is governed by a network administrative organisation (NAO), with the Department of the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) filling the role. How the network is structured and governed increases the likelihood that the network will be stable, have a unity of purpose and be able to meet its objectives. However, the dominance of national‐level actors and its centralized structure are likely to make it challenging for the NAO to gain the support of local‐level actors. This paper's methodological approach can be applied in other contexts to understand inter‐actor relations and how these affect the responsibilities, challenges and opportunities of the actors involved in the implementation of a national environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional climate projections indicate that European summer precipitation may change considerably in the future. Southern Europe can expect substantial drying while Northern Europe could actually become wetter. Model spread and internal variability in these projections are large, however, and unravelling the processes that underlie the changes is essential to get more confidence in these projections. Large-scale circulation change is one of the contributors to model spread. In this paper we quantify the role of future large-scale circulation changes to summer precipitation change, using a 16-member single-model ensemble obtained with the regional climate model RACMO2, forced by the global climate model EC-Earth2.3 and the RCP8.5 emission scenario. Using the method of circulation analogues three contributions to the future precipitation change are distinguished. The first is the precipitation change occurring without circulation change (referred to as the thermodynamic term). This contribution is characterised by a marked drying-to-wetting gradient as one moves north from the Mediterranean. The second contribution measures the effects of changes in the mean circulation. It has a very different spatial pattern and is closely related to the development of a region of high pressure (attaining its maximum west of Ireland) and the associated anti-cyclonic circulation response. For a large area east of Ireland including parts of western Europe, it is the major contributor to the overall drying signal, locally explaining more than 90% of the ensemble-mean change. In regions where the patterns overlap, the signal-to-noise ratio of the total change is either enhanced or reduced depending on their relative signs. Although the second term is expected to be particularly model dependent, the high-pressure region west of Ireland also appears in CMIP5 and CMIP6 ensemble-mean projections. The third contribution records the effects of changes in the circulation variability. This term has the smallest net contribution, but a relatively large uncertainty. The analogues are very good in partitioning the ensemble-mean precipitation change, but describe only up to 40% of the ensemble-spread. This demonstrates that other precipitation-drivers (SST, spring soil moisture etc.) will generally strongly influence trends in single climate realisations. This also re-emphasises the need for large ensembles or using alternative methods like the Pseudo Global Warming approach where signal to noise ratios are higher. Nevertheless, identifying the change mechanisms helps to understand the future uncertainties and differences between models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global tourism industry is inextricably linked with climate change, and, faced with a ‘climate emergency’, there is an increasing emphasis on finding environmentally sustainable tourism models. One such model is ‘carbon-neutral tourism (CNT)’. This paper investigates attitudes towards CNT in County Clare (Ireland), focusing on tourism providers. By reviewing and evaluating key relevant academic sources, clarification is given about climate change, and the tourism industry’s relationship with it. The concept of sustainable tourism is explored, leading to an understanding of the meaning of CNT, and the various steps taken to create it. Following this, semi-structured interviews are conducted with selected tourism providers in County Clare. Using purposive sampling, a selection of tourism providers covering key elements of the tourism product are interviewed. These interviews are of a semi-structured format, allowing for some generic investigation, but also permitting an exploration of each provider’s contribution to the tourism product. The analysis concludes that tourism providers in Clare hold generally positive attitudes towards CNT. All respondents currently carry out at least some elements of CNT and all respondents express an enthusiasm to be more involved. However, certain barriers to fuller participation are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) simulations are crucial in balancing a reduced space heat demand and reduced overheating in Passivhaus dwellings. This paper identifies the PHPP simulated overheating frequency (OF) for a dwelling in Douglas, Cork, Ireland, constructed in 2015. The measured indoor temperature is also recorded over a 12-month period. A comparative analysis of measured and simulated overheating is carried out, with two overheating thresholds of 25°C and 24°C. The simulation estimates an OF of 0.00%, for a typical year (at 25°C). The simulation relies on a dwelling average temperature, where the equivalent measured OF for the test year is 2.64%, derived from a volume-weighted mean indoor temperature (Tvm). At a reduced threshold of 24°C, the measured OF is 4.67%. Measurements within 6 independent zones identify 52.61% of readings above 25°C are eliminated by using Tvm. The representation of overheating as a percentage of the year is shown to distort the effect of overheating, while the Tvm value overlooks variations in zonal temperature. This paper recommends that a more robust assessment tool is developed within PHPP, to predict OF for passive house dwellings, while adopting this methodology for dwellings of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One area where climate adaptation policies are proving difficult to design and implement is at the coast. On one hand, some of the most severe impacts of climate change are being recorded at the coast – especially through erosion and flooding – whilst on the other hand, these areas represent complex land-sea planning and policy interfaces. This paper analyses the coherency of policies along Ireland's coast from a climate adaptation perspective. Results suggest that many policies are developed in an ad-hoc fashion around the needs of single sectors. Improved policy coherence at all levels of governance is required to address this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to extend and update the survey of extreme wave events in Ireland that was previously carried out by O'Brien et al. (2013). The original catalogue highlighted the frequency of such events dating back as far as the turn of the last ice age and as recent as 2012. Ireland's marine territory extends far beyond its coastline and is one of the largest seabed territories in Europe. It is therefore not surprising that extreme waves have continued to occur regularly since 2012, particularly considering the severity of weather during the winters of 2013-2014 and 2015-2016. In addition, a large number of storm surges have been identified since the publication of the original catalogue. This paper updates the O'Brien et al. (2013) catalogue to include events up to the end of 2017. Storm surges are included as a new category and events are categorised into long waves (tsunamis and storm surges) and short waves (storm and rogue waves). New results prior to 2012 are also included and some of the events previously documented are reclassified. Important questions regarding public safety, services and the influence of climate change are also highlighted. An interactive map has been created to allow the reader to navigate through events: https://drive.google.com/open?id= 19cZ59pDHfDnXKYIziYAVWV6AfoE&usp=sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid pressure for climate action worldwide, processes of deliberative democracy are being called upon to address public policy complexities, include citizens in decision-making, restore faith in public institutions and enhance governance processes. The citizens' assembly model is lauded internationally for the much-needed structure it provides to support bottom-up governance efforts as well as the potential for effective citizen engagement on complex topics. The Irish Citizens' Assembly, which took place from 2016 to 2018, is heralded as an example of best practice in design and execution. Yet, there is a dearth in analysis of its form, structure, impact and content, particularly in the climate crisis context. This paper examines one element of the deliberative democracy process that aimed to include a wider breadth of publics beyond the 99 citizens randomly selected to take part: the public submissions invited as part of the Citizens' Assembly process. In total, 1185 submissions were received on the topic of climate change. Our study undertakes a comprehensive content analysis of these submissions. Specifically, we explore (1) the content and concerns foregrounded within the submissions, (2) the frames and rhetorical strategies employed and (3) the stakeholders and scales called upon for climate action. The study identifies trends, preoccupations and salience within the corpus of written submissions and expands our understanding of citizen perceptions of climate science and policy. We offer both operational lessons for others aiming to enact similar deliberative forums as well as communications lessons for wider efforts to deepen public engagement on the climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into media frames has focused extensively on the frames found in media texts, while the frame production processes which occur prior to publication have been relatively neglected. Little is known, for instance, about the framing strategies deployed by elite actors in order to influence media coverage of their chosen issue. Taking the case of elite, government-level communication concerning climate change in Ireland, this research presents data from a series of in-depth interviews with two Green Party government ministers, and their senior media advisors, concerning their approach to communicating with journalists about climate change. The interview subjects framed their communications intuitively rather than strategically, but the ways in which they discussed the presentation of their policies maps onto existing frame typologies. The ministers and their advisors employed disparate approaches to communicating about climate change, and they lacked a coherent and disciplined framing strategy. This paper concludes that ministers' efforts to persuade the media to adopt their preferred framing of climate change was negatively affected by the internal conflict over how best to frame the issue, and argues that the failure to resolve the internal frame competition may be just as important as the external competition to influence journalistic framings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact that climate change may have on the lodging of oats in the Republic of Ireland and the UK. Through the consideration of a novel lodging model representing the motion of an oat plant due to the interaction of wind and rain and integrating future predictions of wind and rainfall due to climate change, appropriate conclusions have been made. In order to provide meteorological data for the lodging model, wind and rainfall inputs are analysed using 30 years' time series corresponding to peak lodging months (June and July) from 38 meteorological stations in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic, which enables the relevant probability density functions (PDFs) to be established. Moreover, climate data for the next six decades in the British Isles produced by UK climate change projections (UKCP18) are analysed, and future wind and rainfall PDFs are obtained. It is observed that the predicted changes likely to occur during the key growing period (June to July) in the next 30 years are in keeping with variations, which can occur due to different husbandry treatments/plant varieties. In addition, the utility of a double exponential function for representing the rainfall probability has been observed with appropriate values for the constants given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Oficina do Historiador is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents new palaeoecological data from north County Mayo (Co. Mayo), western Ireland, and reviews published data with a view to achieving a better understanding of the timing and nature of early farming in the region, its impact on the natural environment, and the factors, including climate change, that influenced mid- and late-Holocene vegetation dynamics and farming in the region. A long pollen profile from Glenulra, a deep basin situated within Céide Fields, and short profiles from blanket peat that overlies the prehistoric stone-wall field system provide unambiguous evidence for substantial farming, including widespread woodland clearance, in the early British and Irish Neolithic (beginning ca. 3800 BCE). This was followed by a distinct lull that lasted several centuries until farming activity resumed again, at first modestly (at ca. 2700 BCE) and then more markedly from 2350 BCE, i.e. at the Neolithic–Chalcolithic transition. It is argued on the basis of this and other palaeoecological evidence, including pollen analytical investigations at nearby Garrynagran, that, contrary to recent suggestions, there is no reason to doubt the widely held view that the stone-wall field system – unique in a western European Neolithic context – is correctly ascribable to the earlier part of the British and Irish Neolithic. The history of pine growing in bog contexts (mainly blanket bog) in the region is considered in the light of 14C dates derived from pine timbers, and the results of dendrochronological investigations at Garrynagran that have enabled two floating pine chronologies to be constructed, are presented. The climatic implications of these data are discussed within local and wider regional contexts. Kurzfassung: Diese Studie präsentiert neue paläoökologische Daten aus dem nördlichen Co. Mayo (Grafschaft Mayo), Westirland, und überprüft bereits veröffentlichte Daten in Hinblick auf ein besseres Verständnis der Zeitstellung und des Typus früher Landwirtschaft in der Region, deren Auswirkungen auf die natürliche Umwelt, und auf Faktoren, einschließlich des Klimawandels, die die mittel- bis spätholozäne Vegetationsdynamik und Landwirtschaft der Region beeinflusst haben. Ein langes Pollenprofil aus Glenulra, einem tiefen Becken im Bereich der Céide Fields, und kurze Profile aus Torfen, die das prähistorische System aus Steinmauern flächenhaft überlagern, liefern eindeutige Beweise für umfangreiche Landwirtschaft, einschließlich ausgedehnter Rodung von Waldgebieten, im frühen Britischen und Irischen Neolithikum (beginnend ca. 3800 BC). Daran schloss eine ausgeprägte Flaute der landwirtschaftlichen Nutzung an, die mehrere Jahrhunderte anhielt. Die landwirtschaftliche Nutzung fing wieder an zuzunehmen, zuerst mäßig um ca. 2700 BC und viel stärker um ca. 2350 BC zur Zeit des Neolithisch–Chalkolithischen Übergangs. Auf der Grundlage dieser und anderer paläoökologischer Belege, einschließlich pollenanalytischer Untersuchungen im nahe gelegenen Garrynagran, wird argumentiert, dass es im Gegensatz zu jüngsten Vorschlägen keinen Grund gibt, die weit verbreitete Ansicht zu bezweifeln, dass das System von durch Steinmauern umschlossenen Feldern – in Europa in neolithischen Kontext einzigartig – korrekterweise dem früheren Teil des Britisch–Irischen Neolithikums zugeschrieben wird. Auf der Grundlage von vorliegenden 14C Daten, die an Kiefernhölzern gewonnen wurden und basierend auf den Ergebnissen dendrochronologischer Untersuchungen in Garrynagran, die die Erstellung zweier hängender Kiefern-Chronologien ermöglichten, wird die Geschichte des Anbaus von Kiefern im Kontext von Mooren (hauptsächlich geländebedeckende Moore) vorgestellt. Die klimatischen Implikationen dieser Daten werden im lokalen und weiteren regionalen Kontext diskutiert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Green Deal (EGD) represents the response of the European Union (EU) to the climate crisis and a strategy to mitigate against climate change and the associated environmental degradation. European Climate Law supports the EGD by setting the legally binding target of climate neutrality for the EU on a time horizon of 2050 and mandates that member states develop and implement their own Climate Action Plans (CAP), which are strategic roadmaps outlining steps to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Within the Irish context, the CAP focuses on six specific sectors, three of which, namely the energy grid, the built environment and transportation are considered in this research. This policy proposes the retrofitting of all residential buildings in the country to a B2 energy performance certificate (EPC), all public transport and 60% of private vehicles electrified and the full decarbonisation of the electrical grid by 2050. This study aims to implement the targets and goals outlined within CAP 2021 in an urban area of Ireland, specifically a historical city centre. The research leverages digital twin technology developed by IES to model the carbon emissions associated with the built environment, while also incorporating GHG emissions associated with transportation and the grid. Furthermore, CAP scenarios are applied systematically and strategically, prioritising building retrofits based on buildings with similar characteristics, typologies and performance. This study has assessed the performance of CAP about two future grid scenarios (1) business as usual and (2) a decarbonised grid. In both scenarios, CAP was not sufficient to achieve the targets set out, resulting in a shortfall of between 25 and 33%. Based on this outcome it may be concluded that any decarbonisation targets specified should be tested and validated before their implementation in policy. Moreover, current state-of-theart digital twin technologies can facilitate the rapid holistic appraisal of complex multi-sectoral policy at the urban scale, which, depending on data availability, could prove useful in future iterations of CAP at both national and international levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Keeping within the temperature limits set by the Paris Agreement on climate action will be a significant challenge. Nuclear power generation may contribute to achieving these targets, however, there are significant environmental, economic and health risks attached. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper explores how nuclear power generation is framed in the Irish print media, and discusses the implications of these frames for how nuclear power is perceived within the context of climate change mitigation in Ireland. Two Irish broadsheet papers, the Irish Times and the Irish Independent were selected for data collection, focusing on Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents. The prevalence of informational and balanced articles suggest that to some extent, an open debate on nuclear is already occurring. Nevertheless, significantly more articles take an anti-nuclear stance (34% in 1986 and 27.5% in 2011) than pro-nuclear (2.1% in 1986 and 3.3% in 2011), reflecting the lack of public appetite for nuclear power. This may limit the potential for a wider debate to occur within the context of reducing domestic emissions. Considering the urgency of addressing climate change, a full and balanced societal debate on how nuclear power, other energy alternatives (e.g. wind) and the energy sector more generally, can contribute to national climate policy targets may be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are new, and increasing, pressures facing coastal communities, including socio-economic and environmental change, exploitation of resources, urban development and the predicted impacts of climate change. The cumulative and interacting effect of these challenges may result in socio-economic and physical decline. This paper responds to calls for more detailed investigation into coastal regeneration by providing empirical evidence (interviews, observations, policy analysis) on specific coastal resorts on the island of Ireland. In doing so it builds on an emerging area of research that suggests coastal regeneration may be theoretically and practically informed by "resilience thinking". The case study findings highlight differing, and sometimes competing values, perceptions and priorities at the local level and highlight the challenges facing striving resorts seeking to find their contemporary identity and enhance their resilience to future change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The IPCC emphasises the need to centre climate change adaptation in climate actions due to a lack of progress on meaningful climate change mitigation. This requires the expansion of adaptive capacity across many sectors, including education. Research asserts the key role formal education plays in increasing the learning and cognitive aspects of adaptive capacity and associated capabilities, but further work is required to understand the impacts of attempts to enact such changes, specifically in relation to climate change adaptation planning. Drawing on impact data collected from an experimental place-based digital educational resource – Climate Smart – that includes a serious online role play game, designed with and for second level students aged 15–17 in Ireland, this paper outlines the challenges of, and opportunities for, engaging young people in learning about climate change adaptation planning. We conclude that while such educational innovations are impactful in the short-term and essential for developing foundational knowledge and skills, as well as shaping individual and social norms, they will be insufficient alone to optimise capabilities for long term adaptive capacity for climate change adaptation. Wider complementary structural changes across multiple systems which support people to enact their learning and functionalise their capabilities are required. Finally, a prospective agenda for progressing adaptive capacity for climate adaptation planning with education at its core is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide an overview of achievements in forest research in Ireland carried out by various agencies over the past 60 yr. Many of the outcomes of the research have ensured that policy and practice are well-founded, and many of the research results form the basis of current forest standards and practice. Forest research has, and will continue to have, a significant role in national policy development and international reporting commitments. The achievement of future goals and targets is increasingly dependent on the maintenance of the goods and services that forests provide; these can be enhanced through the establishment of new forests and by appropriate management of the resource (e.g. The EU Green Deal and EU Forest Strategy). We outline the current state of knowledge which can be used to inform afforestation goals and the importance of tree improvement, forest management and forest protection to improve competitiveness and sustainability. Research into forestry and carbon provides a focus on the opportunities and challenges of climate change to Irish forestry. Future efforts will involve longer-term monitoring of environmental change commensurate with the forest rotation to reduce the uncertainties associated with climate change. Research into forestry economics, attitudinal surveys and behavioural studies may help inform the achievement of future policy goals. Reducing the impacts of biotic attack through efficient surveying, disease monitoring and assessing future risk is likely to be the focus of future research effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Adaptation Framework aims to reduce Ireland's vulnerability to climate change by establishing climate adaptation considerations as a priority at local, regional and national level. With coastal areas and habitats particularly susceptible to negative climate change effects, it is necessary to build resilience in these areas by devising coastal adaptation responses in collaboration with coastal communities. Policies and structures have also been put in place to create an enabling environment which facilitates community participation. However, the extent of community engagement and its current role in formulating and implementing coastal adaptation responses are unclear. This paper assesses the effectiveness of the enabling environment in encouraging community-led coastal adaptation solutions by identifying community and voluntary groups who are actively engaging with stakeholders at all levels of governance in key adaptation tasks. The findings reveal that the policies and structures for enhanced local participation in coastal adaptation responses are in place, but as only a small number of communities are actively engaging in coastal adaptation solutions, further progress in their implementation is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of the interactions between global environmental and socioeconomic changes in shaping vulnerability and exposure to hazards is now increasingly recognised. However, relatively little attention has been focused on the ways in which these interactions help to shape planning and policy in response to both processes. This paper examines how the intersections between the twin crises of economic recession and climate change are influencing hazards mitigation policy and climate change adaptation planning in three of Ireland's coastal cities. The cities of Dublin, Cork, and Galway are important case studies for this analysis due to the magnitude of socioeconomic and environmental changes they have witnessed in recent years. The paper begins by using the double-exposure framework to analyse how the interactions between global environmental and socioeconomic change have produced the contextual environment within which decision making and policy formation take place. This is followed by the presentation and analysis of the results of semistructured interviews with local decision makers and stakeholders. These illustrate that the interactions between environmental change and economic crisis have created the material and ideological conditions in which a neoliberal growth centred discourse of economic development dominates all areas of decision making and-policy. This has important implications for environmental policy and planning in cities, promoting a vision of a modern competitive city in which technological solutions are the preferred means of addressing flood risks. These decisions in turn reshape the exposures and vulnerabilities of local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salt marshes typically develop on low-energy coasts under the influence of the tide. However, there are peat salt-marshes along the west coast of Ireland that formed in an inherently different way. This paper examines the ontogeny of these salt- marshes and highlights their uniqueness both in an Irish and global context. The peat of these marshes formed in postglacial times when climatic conditions were such that ombrogenic blanket bogs formed along the western Atlantic coast of Ireland. A subsequent marine transgression caused a shift from freshwater to saline conditions, and these bogs now support salt-marsh vegetation. These systems have been termed "Fringe" marshes in the Irish salt-marsh inventory. Unlike other organogenic salt-marshes in Europe, they formed under predominantly freshwater conditions, thus making them unique in geological foundation. This paper examines the complexity of natural controls on salt-marsh systems and relates this to the ecological character of fringe marshes. It emphasises that their position on the western Atlantic seaboard, coupled with peat substrate and its inherent properties, could drive a unique ecological character. Ongoing and future threats to these habitats are discussed. The term "Fringe" is used internationally in many other contexts and therefore does not specifically describe these peat substrate marshes. In order to distinguish the peat salt-marshes of the west coast of Ireland from those formed under different conditions, the term "Ombrogenic Atlantic Salt-Marsh" is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change policies are informed by contributions from public, private and civil society organisations at a range of scales from the local to the global. Such policy formation has come to be termed multilevel governance. Transnational networks of local authorities are an emerging feature of multilevel governance and they have been heralded as a means to improve the implementation of climate change policy on the ground. However empirical evaluation of these transnational climate change networks is geographically limited and no research examining their impact in Ireland has been conducted. In response this paper considers the significance of European climate change networks within Ireland's climate change strategy. It concludes that these formal transnational networks have had limited impact to date due to ongoing negotiations about the politics of scale and responsibility with respect to climate change policies in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike most developed countries, agriculture is the greatest single source of greenhouse gases in Ireland and accounts for approximately one-third of the national emissions. In this paper, the future emissions of greenhouse gases from Irish agriculture are projected using an economic model of the Irish agricultural sector. Coefficients from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are used to convert the raw agricultural data from the economic model to emission levels. These projections are generated under two different scenarios: the first is a baseline result, which holds the present agricultural policy environment – the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – constant for the projection period. The second result is the projection of emissions under a particular policy reform scenario. The effect of this scenario on emissions is measured relative to the baseline result. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mainstreaming of climate change through processes of media communication and political advocacy carries with it an imagined public. Drawing on qualitative data from 11 focus groups and 19 life history interviews carried out in the Republic of Ireland1in 2010, the paper reveals a significant mismatch between the perceived characteristics of this imagined audience, and the practices and experiences of a socially embedded Irish public. Moreover, we observe the emergence of restrictive forms of discourse around climate change that leave little room for connecting with the topic, thereby serving to delegitimise it as a matter of public interest. Given the necessity for climate action and decarbonisation efforts that reach across diverse social and cultural arenas, we see potential for a broadening of public debate in line with key principles of deliberative democracy, with a view to achieving a more open and inclusive politics of climate change. Although we recognise the limitations of mainstream deliberative democracy thinking, including its inherent rationalism, we believe that its explicit commitment to inclusiveness and transparency offers a viable alternative to current disengagement and exclusion of citizens from meaningful climate change debate and action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Climate science has become more ambitious in recent years as global awareness about the environment has grown. To better understand climate, historical climate(e.g. archived meteorological variables such as temperature, wind, water, etc.) and climate-related data (e.g. geographical features and human activities) are widely used by today's climate research to derive models for an explainable climate change and its effects. However, such data sources are often dispersed across a multitude of disconnected data silos on the Web. Moreover, there is a lack of advanced climate data platforms to enable multi-source heterogeneous climate data analysis, therefore, researchers must face a stern challenge in collecting and analyzing multi-source data. In this paper, we address this problem by proposing a climate knowledge graph for the integration of multiple climate data and other data sources into one service, leveraging Web technologies (e.g. HTTP) for multi-source climate data analysis. The proposed knowledge graph is primarily composed of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's daily climate summaries, OpenStreetMap, and Wikidata, and it supports joint data queries on these widely used databases. This paper shows, with a use case in Ireland and the United Kingdom, how climate researchers could benefit from this platform as it allows them to easily integrate datasets from different domains and geographical locations. • Interoperable knowledge graphs advances integrating and updating multi-source data. • OpenStreetMap data enhance the geographical features of the knowledge graph data. • Exploring the knowledge graph structures visually is necessary for non-experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Citizens' Assembly, a form of deliberative mini-public, tasked 99 ordinary Irish citizens with the responsibility of deliberating on five topics, after which they made recommendations to government. Throughout assembly meetings members were presented with up-to-date accurate information from experts. 'How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change' was considered third by the assembly over two weekends. On the final day the citizens voted on thirteen strongly endorsed recommendations for government to act on. The release of the final report in April 2018 saw a further four ancillary recommendations added. There was considerable media coverage surrounding the Citizens' Assembly for this topic. This research undertakes a content analysis of four national media sources over fifteen-months; the Farmers Journal, the Irish Independent, The Irish Times and TheJournal.ie. We found that climate related reporting became more neutral in tone and more divergent in its relationship to evidence over the research period. There was a reflection of the key themes from the Citizens' Assembly in each media source, and themes changed through time for each publication. Two of the media sources examined increased their overall levels of climate reporting while the other two decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feeding the world's population while minimising the contribution of agriculture to climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing modern society. This challenge is particularly pronounced for dairy production where the carbon footprint of products and the mitigation costs are high, relative to other food stuffs. This paper reviews a number of mitigation measures that may be adopted by dairy farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their farms. A simulation model is developed to assess the cost-benefit of a range of mitigation measures. The model is applied to data from Ireland, a country with a large export-oriented dairy industry, for a range of farms including top, middle and bottom performing farms from a profitability perspective. The mitigation measures modelled included animal productivity, grass production and utilisation, better reproductive performance, early compact calving, reduced crude protein, decreased fertiliser N, protected urea, white clover, slurry tank cover and low emission slurry spreading (LESS). The results show that over half of the greenhouse gas abatement potential and most of the ammonia abatement potential were realised with cost-beneficial measures. Animal and feed-related measures that increased efficiency drove the abatement of GHG emissions. Low-emission slurry spreading was beneficial for the bottom and middle one-third of farms, while protected urea and reducing nitrogen use accounted for most of the ammonia abatement potential for the most profitable farms. Results showed that combining mitigation measures resulted in a decrease of 23%, 19%, and 12% in GHG emissions below 2020 levels for the bottom, middle, and top performing dairy farms, respectively. The findings imply that top dairy farms, that are already managed efficiently and optimally, may struggle to achieve the national and international GHG reduction targets with existing technologies and practices. • The top dairy group may struggle to achieve the 2030 and future GHG reductions targets with existing technologies and practices • 56%–86% of emissions reduction achieved through mitigation measures that were cost effective, net-zero for all three groups • Farm-level MACCs can account for variability in GHG and NH3 mitigation potentials and costs, that are often missed at the sectoral or country level. • The study found that combining mitigation measures resulted in a decrease of 23%, 19%, and 12% in GHG emissions below 2020 levels for the bottom, middle, and top dairy groups, respectively • Farm-level marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) are useful for understanding the capacity to reduce gaseous emissions from specific agricultural systems or farms [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing research interest in emotional responses to climate change and their role in climate action and psycho-social impacts of climate change. At the same time, emotional experience of climate change is multidimensional and influenced by a variety of factors, including the local cultural context. Here, we contribute to the scientific debate about this topic with original qualitycontrolled data from the general populations in Norway (N = 491) and Ireland (N = 485). We investigate the cross-cultural validity and the nomological span of eight distinct emotional responses to climate change - climate anger, climate contempt, climate enthusiasm, climate powerlessness, climate guilt, climate isolation, climate anxiety, and climate sorrow - measured using the recently introduced Inventory of Climate Emotions. We first validate the 8-factor structure of the Norwegian and English language versions of the ICE. Subsequently, we demonstrate a high degree of cross-cultural measurement invariance for these eight climate emotions. Finally, we explore the relationships between these emotional responses and a range of theoretically relevant variables. In this final step, we show that climate emotions are differentially linked to climate change perceptions, support for mitigation policies, socio-demographic factors, feelings of loneliness and alienation, environmental activism, and the willingness to prioritize the natural environment over one's immediate selfinterests. Some of these links are also differentiated by the cultural context. This research presents further evidence for the structural, cross-cultural, and concurrent validity of climate emotions as postulated in the ICE framework. Moreover, it provides tools in the form of validated Norwegian and English language versions of the ICE, the complete R code for the validation analysis, as well as an informed basis for cross-cultural research on emotional responses to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal communities and their landscapes are subject to constant change, and today face new challenges as a result of climate change and the sustainable energy transition. To ensure the resilience of coastal communities to ongoing changes in the natural and constructed environment, it is imperative that planners and other decision‐makers understand the importance of local places to residents.We used an interdisciplinary, mixed‐methods approach to study relationships between coastal residents and places in south Co. Wicklow, Ireland, introducing the concept of 'affective engagement'. Grounded in new materialist theory (notably actor–network theory), this term connects the meaning derived by residents from their relationships with coastal places ('affect') to the extent of their material interactions ('engagement'). 'Affect' was determined from thematic analysis of interviews and open questionnaire responses, as well as place attachment scales included in the questionnaire. Measures describing the strength of the relationship between residents and coastal places were used as a proxy for 'engagement'.To understand how experienced meaning and material interaction interlink, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to join and visually explore the different measures of 'affect' and 'engagement'. Potentially mediating sociodemographic variables were investigated using a permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA).The majority of self‐selected study participants displayed strong place attachment to their most frequently visited places. We found that affective engagement does not vary with age, gender or type of place. Participants favoured natural and constructed places in equal measure. This implies that constructed places can be of high value due to their different functions for different individuals, and that landscape transformations may impact on coastal residents if they cause a change in functionality.We found two domains comprising affective engagement that are not measurable by quantitative or qualitative data alone. The first of these domains is driven by attachments to places, and the other by meanings relating to either personal or social fulfilment afforded by a place.Our findings may help planners better understand the meanings behind local support for (or resistance against) landscape transformations, and how residents' affective engagement might be impacted by proposed interventions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in the concept of resilience has grown significantly in recent years. The perceived strengths of resilience as a concept stem from its foundations in the sciences and humanities, and have recently gained currency amongst political actors and in policy spheres. This papers objective is to investigate the value of resilience as a concept when applied to the process of coastal climate change adaptation with a focus on place specificity. As applied to coastal hazards and climate change adaptation, we expect that resilience encompasses more system complexities than a traditional vulnerability or hazards approach. Our aim in this paper is achieved through carrying out a critical analysis of Irish and US academic and policy literature and determining if, and to what degree, one or more of the three selected lenses of psychological, engineering and ecological resilience are applied. Through contrasting the evolution of coastal adaptation policy developments in both Ireland and the U.S. the paper highlights the importance of policy, environment and geography in the area of coastal management. It furthermore examines the question of whether the concept of resilience represents a paradigm shift, or whether it maintains the dominant anthropological perspective of earlier hazard mitigation approaches under new guise. The increasing focus on climate adaptation as more than enhanced hazard mitigation exemplifies that shift. In the U.S. proposals for large-scale retreat programs post-Sandy are further evidence that combined ecological-anthropological approaches are gaining traction, though planning actions taken and factors considered continue to be dominated by parochialism and anthropocentric or psychological definitions of resilience. In Ireland there is a noticeable increase in the ecological resilience grounded practices of adaptive management and co-management in relation to coastal planning. The fostering of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) frameworks as well as a clear linking between climate adaption and the management of coastal regions underlines this development. Results indicate that resilience, under the three forms explored, is a concept that has recently increased in popularity. Simultaneously, there has been a discernible shift in the direction of broader inclusion of concerns about human–environment interactions, but the two are not necessarily coextensive, and concepts of resilience do not always encompass these concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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ABSTRACT Commercial fishing is an important socio-economic activity in coastal regions of the UK and Ireland. Ocean-atmospheric changes caused by greenhouse gas emissions are likely to affect future fish and shellfish production, and lead to increasing challenges in ensuring long-term sustainable fisheries management., The paper reviews existing knowledge and understanding of the exposure of marine ecosystems to ocean-atmospheric changes, the consequences of these changes for marine fisheries in the UK and Ireland, and the adaptability of the UK and Irish fisheries sector., Ocean warming is resulting in shifts in the distribution of exploited species and is affecting the productivity of fish stocks and underlying marine ecosystems. In addition, some studies suggest that ocean acidification may have large potential impacts on fisheries resources, in particular shell-forming invertebrates., These changes may lead to loss of productivity, but also the opening of new fishing opportunities, depending on the interactions between climate impacts, fishing grounds and fleet types. They will also affect fishing regulations, the price of fish products and operating costs, which in turn will affect the economic performance of the UK and Irish fleets., Key knowledge gaps exist in our understanding of the implications of climate and ocean chemistry changes for marine fisheries in the UK and Ireland, particularly on the social and economic responses of the fishing sectors to climate change. However, these gaps should not delay climate change mitigation and adaptation policy actions, particularly those measures that clearly have other 'co-benefits'. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas generate distinctive climates that are revealed in the statistics of wind, temperature, humidity and so on. These properties are the result of energy exchanges between the atmosphere and underlying urban surface, which is the focus of physical climatology studies. These exchanges form an energy budget (EB), which includes radiation exchanges (both solar and terrestrial), the turbulent fluxes of sensible and latent heat and the energy transferred to the substrate by conduction. An evaluation of these exchanges and their spatial variation is essential to explaining the effect that cities have on climate at all scales. However, observing these exchanges is difficult and requires both sensitive equipment and careful placement to ensure representative readings. This paper presents some initial results on the EB over two urban surfaces in Dublin, one a densely built urban site near the city centre and the other a mature, well-vegetated, suburban site. The results demonstrate the effects of different urban surface features on surface-air exchanges. The objective hysteresis model is also employed to evaluate the energy balance residual. Results show good agreement between modelled and residual values. Although there have been studies on Dublin's urban climate, most notably its urban heat island (UHI), there has been no prior study of the energetic processes responsible for this local climate change. This research programme, for which initial results are presented in this paper, is one of the few studies globally that will maintain long-term measurements (five years) of urban EBs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Agriculture is responsible for the bulk of Ireland's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the potential to mitigate some of these emissions through the adoption of more efficient farm management practices may be hampered by farmers' awareness and attitude towards climate change and agriculture's role in contributing to GHG emissions. This paper presents results from a survey of 746 Irish farmers in 2014, with a view to understanding farmers' awareness of, and attitudes to, climate change and GHG emissions. Survey results show that there was a general uncertainty towards a number of questions related to agricultural GHG emissions, e.g. if tilling of land causes GHG emissions, and that farmers were reluctant to take action to reduce GHG emissions on their farm. To further explore farmers' attitudes towards climate change, a multinomial logit model was used to examine the socio-economic factors that affect farmers' willingness to adopt an advisory tool that would show the potential reduction in GHG emissions from the adoption of new technologies. Results show that farmers' awareness of human-induced global climate change was positively related to the tool's adoption. Key policy insights Irish farmers are generally not sufficiently aware of the impact of their activities on climate change. A quarter of farmers believed that climate change will only impact on their business in the long-term; such an attitude may lead to a reluctance amongst these farmers to adopt management practices that reduce GHG emissions. Awareness of climate change affects positively the adoption of new tools to reduce GHG emissions on farmers' farms. IT literacy affects willingness to adopt new tools to address GHG emissions. Reception of agri-environmental advice can have a positive influence on farmers' willingness to adopt new GHG emission abatement tools. Farmers in receipt of environmental subsidies are more likely to adopt new abatement tools, either because they are more environmentally conscious or because the subsidy raised their environmentally consciousness. Willingness to adopt differs between different farm enterprises; operating dairy enterprise increases the willingness to adopt new advisory mitigation tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Coastal environments are susceptible to a range of impacts arising from medium and long-term climate change. However, as Ireland''s population and industrial centres are concentrated in coastal locations, Ireland''s coastal communities will be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Therefore, making the best use of existing knowledge to inform the establishment of governance structures capable of facilitating the measures and actions which may soon be required is a national imperative. Coastal communities worldwide have turned to integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) as a process to deliver sustainable development. This paper explores how experience gained from ICZM implementation can be harnessed to inform the development and implementation of climate adaptation policies, with a particular focus on the coastal zone. Using the principles and conceptual basis of Earth System Governance – an emerging approach to analyse complexity of governance under global environmental change – the paper maps the architecture of ICZM and climate governance in Ireland. The research identifies the main barriers to, and opportunities for, integrated application of the two policy domains. Barriers include the fragmentation of governance structures and responsibilities of key stakeholders, a lack of coordinated support for ICZM implementation at the national level, and a relatively weak awareness of the specifics of adaptation at the local level. Opportunities include the availability of expertise gathered from phases of ICZM implementation in Ireland, which encompasses mechanisms for science-policy integration, and invaluable experience of stakeholder participation and interaction. Current political and scientific support at national and EU levels give an additional impetus to climate research and actions which may bring additional opportunities and resources to coastal governance in Ireland. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper assesses the impacts of a targeted policy designed to influence car purchasing trends towards lower CO2 emitting vehicles. Vehicle registration tax and annual motor tax rates in Ireland changed in July 2008 from being based on engine size to emissions performance of cars. This paper provides a one year ex-post analysis of the first year of the tax change, tracking the change in purchasing trends arising from the measure related to specific CO2 emissions, engine size and fuel, and the implications for car prices, CO2 emissions abatement, and revenue gathered. While engine efficiency improvements had been offset by purchasing trends towards larger and generally less efficient cars in the past, with the average MJ/km remaining constant from 2000 to 2007, this analysis shows that in the first year of the new taxation system the average specific emissions of new cars fell by 13% to 145g/km. This was brought about, not by a reduction in engine size, but rather through a significant shift to diesel cars. Despite an unexpected reduction in car sales due to a recession in 2008, the policy measure has had a larger than anticipated impact on CO2 emissions, calculated to be 5.9ktCO2 in the first year of the measure. The strong price signal did however result in a 33% reduction in tax revenue from VRT, in financial terms amounting to a drop of €166 million compared to a baseline situation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Butterfly Conservation, in partnership with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and Dublin Naturalists' Field Club, has been coordinating the collation of detailed geographical records of butterfly sightings across Britain and Ireland, mainly made by volunteers, for a continuous period of 15 years since 1995. This has generated a dataset of over 7.5 million records, supplemented by collated historical records. Results at the end of the first five-year period (1995-9) and at the end of the second five-year period (2000-4) indicated significant range declines in many species over a 30-year period (since baseline distributions recorded in the 1970s); for other species, there has been a significant extension of range, principally towards more northerly latitudes. This paper shows the results of a preliminary analysis for the end of the third five-year period (2005-9), to assess progress towards the EU target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010. The findings indicate that populations are continuing to be lost at a similar rate to previous periods, contrary to the 2010 target. In contrast, major northward extensions of range are reported for some mobile generalist species. Conservation successes are also reported for a few species whose declines have been halted and in some cases, reversed. Changes in range and species diversity remain consistent with the primary hypotheses for the causes of change: decreases caused by destruction, deterioration and fragmentation of biotopes and range increases in response to climate warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulations of future climate change impacts are highly uncertain, particularly for catchment hydrology, where output from models of complex dynamic systems (global climate) are used as inputs to models of complex dynamic systems (hydrology models). This is problematic where decision-making for adaptation is underpinned by future climate predictions, and where policy-makers have opted to delay adaptation until either uncertainties are reduced, or climate change signals emerge from observations. This paper, using the Boyne catchment in the east of Ireland as a case study, discusses the uncertainties involved in climate change impact assessment for catchment hydrology and highlights why uncertainties are unlikely to be constrained or reduced in the time-scale required for adaptation. In addition, by calculating the time required for climate change signals to emerge from the observational record and the magnitude of change required for detection, it is highlighted that waiting for climate signals to be statistically detectable is not an option for effective adaptation. The paper concludes by considering how a paradigm shift in how we use the output from climate impact assessments can progress the adaptation agenda given the limits to prediction identified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although northern peatlands cover only 3% of the land surface, their thick peat deposits contain an estimated one-third of the world's soil organic carbon (SOC). Under a changing climate the potential of peatlands to continue sequestering carbon is unknown. This paper presents an analysis of 6 years of total carbon balance of an almost intact Atlantic blanket bog in Glencar, County Kerry, Ireland. The three components of the measured carbon balance were: the land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO) and methane (CH) and the flux of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) exported in a stream draining the peatland. The 6 years C balance was computed from 6 years (2003-2008) of measurements of meteorological and eddy-covariance CO fluxes, periodic chamber measurements of CH fluxes over 3.5 years, and 2 years of continuous DOC flux measurements. Over the 6 years, the mean annual carbon was −29.7±30.6 (±1 SD) g C m yr with its components as follows: carbon in CO was a sink of −47.8±30.0 g C m yr; carbon in CH was a source of 4.1±0.5 g C m yr and the carbon exported as stream DOC was a source of 14.0±1.6 g C m yr. For 2 out of the 6 years, the site was a source of carbon with the sum of CH and DOC flux exceeding the carbon sequestered as CO. The average C balance for the 6 years corresponds to an average annual growth rate of the peatland surface of 1.3 mm yr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Interest in renewable energy in Ireland has increased continually over the past decade. This interest is due primarily to security of supply issues and the effects of climate change. Ireland imports over 90% of its primary energy consumption, mostly in the form of fossil fuels. The exploitation of Ireland''s vast indigenous renewable energy resources is required in order to reduce this over-dependence on fossil fuel imports to meet energy demand. Various targets have been set by the Irish government to incorporate renewable energy technologies into Ireland''s energy market. As a result of these targets, the development in wind energy has increased substantially over the past decade; however this method of energy extraction is intermittent and unpredictable. Ireland has an excellent tidal current energy resource and the use of this resource will assist in the development of a sustainable energy future. Energy extraction using tidal current energy technologies offers a vast and predictable energy resource. This paper reviews the currently accepted tidal current energy resource assessment for Ireland. This assessment was compiled by Sustainable Energy Ireland in a report in 2004. The assessment employed a 2-dimensional numerical model of the tidal current velocities around Ireland, and from this numerical model the theoretical tidal current energy resource was identified. With the introduction of constraints and limitations, the technical, practical, accessible and viable tidal current energy resources were obtained. The paper discusses why the assessment needs updating including the effect on the assessment of the current stage of development of tidal current turbines and their deployment technology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to media studies on climate change through a study of the ways in which the adequacy of transnational measures of tackling climate change are represented in media outlets in the UK, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. Media texts on the European Union Energy and Climate Package, introduced in January 2008 and approved in modified form in December 2008, are analyzed in-depth. Through an exploratory cross-societal comparison of media representations, the paper traces some of the dynamics of contemporary environmental debates. We argue that the adequacy of proposed transnational measures for tackling climate change becomes a relative concept in the media: measures are not adequate or inadequate per se, but contingent upon social context and relative with regard to time and to the comparisons made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]