Environment Minister Martin Cullen told the opening session of the two-day conference, entitled 'Pathways to a Sustainable Future,' that the research would assist in formulating policies to deal with the likely impact of water management, flooding, agricultural changes and coastal zone management.

Irish temperatures have been increasing at a quarter of a degree Centigrade per decade over the last century, according to Rowan Fealy, from the Department of Geography at Maynooth university, west of Dublin.

Fealy was due to present his research to the conference on Friday.

Ireland's most significant climate change came in the 1990s -- the warmest decade on record, Fealy was to tell the conference, which was being held to mark the tenth anniversary of the government's Environmental Protection Agency.

"There has been a significant decrease in the number of frost days and a general increase in the number of hot days," he was to say.

Fealy was to add that rainfall in the northwest rose by 40 percent during the last century.

This suggests "that by 2055, Ireland will be experiencing wetter winters with increases in the order of 10-11 percent nationally, with the north and west coasts experiencing increases of up to 20 percent," he was to say.

"The scenarios for summer precipitation indicate national decreases in the order of up to 25 percent, but the east and southeast coasts may experience decreases in the region of 30-40 percent."

SPACE.WIRE