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THE INVESTIGATORS

Professor Peter Lynch Image Name: Professor Peter Lynch Description: The Investigators Copyright: © RTÉ Stills Library RTÉ. This image may be reproduced in print or electronic format for promotional purposes only. Any further use of this image must be re-negotiated separately with RTÉ. Use is subject to a fee to be agreed according to the current RTÉ Stills Library rate card.

Ireland’s researchers are punching above their weight in the world and are quietly making a significant contribution to the improvement of all of our daily lives. This series looks at some of the most interesting projects leading Irish scientists are working on and assesses what the impact may be on our lives in the future.

The selection of projects is extremely diverse and ranges from the identification of a protein which may help to arrest and even reverse the onset of Alzheimer’s to the design of a camera which can picture an event in space which happened billions of years ago.

Each week the programme will focus on a specific area of life on which the Investigators are concentrating. The subjects include: Ireland in Space, Ageing, Sensors, Climate Change, Crops of the Future and the Nano Revolution

CLIMATE CHANGE

In order to properly understand what is happening with climate change and what the effects might be in the future, scientists throughout the world must understand the processes driving climate change, the interactions and feedbacks between different parts of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land mass and the Earth’s interaction with other parts of the solar system. Developing and testing theories to explain the Earth’s climate is an important part of solving the challenges of climate change.

Understanding of the various climate feedbacks (negative and positive) is essential for effective policy making. One of the techniques used to represent the physical drivers of climate is mathematical modelling run on high spec computers operated by the UCD Meterorology and Climate Centre and the Irish Centre for High End Computing. Researchers are also looking at Ireland’s relationship with the Sun and with the seas that surround us and what the possible results of existing climate change may bring, for example how the melting of glaciers and the introduction of huge quantities of fresh water into our oceans might affect the ocean currents. The programme also looks at the concept of climate shift (a major climactic change which can occur in a very short period of time with sometimes severe consequences).

Contributors include:

Prof Ray Bates, UCD expert in climate systems and feedback mechanisms; uses modelling to test theories and develop explanations for climate functions.

Prof Peter Lynch UCD is using these new models to help to better predict the results of climate change for Ireland. In some cases he is attempting to “predict the unpredictable”. Both are analysing change in relation to the earth’s oceans.

Alistair McKinstry – IBM Blue – Gene computer for high end computing for EC Earth

Paul Dunlop and Sara Bennetti – Glaciologists – they are working on the premise that investigations into clues left by Ireland’s last ice age may yield clues as to what will happen when the last two remaining ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) melt. We follow them as they head out to the far shores of Irish waters and drop a drilling core into the sea bed to take samples and analyse the results.