European climate-prediction experts are meeting in Dublin this week to discuss the development of a computer system to examine future weather patterns.
The meeting of the EC-Earth Programme, an international collaborative project aiming to simulate and predict the entire global climate system, got under way at University College Dublin yesterday and it continues today.
It plans to develop a computer model that will improve predictions of global climate for the rest of this century and beyond.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley opened the two-day conference and said projects such as EC-Earth are "absolutely essential if we are to predict the global climate conditions with accuracy".
"I have said on many occasions and will continue to say that climate change threatens our very existence and we must tackle it now," the Minister said.
In addition to the earth's atmosphere, the computer model will incorporate factors relating to the ocean, land and ice. Modules for marine and terrestrial biogeochemical cycles are expected to be included later in the programme.
The Irish involvement in the EC-Earth Programme is led by Prof Peter Lynch, director of the UCD Centre for Meteorology and Climate, and Ray McGrath, Head of Research at Met Éireann.
