Abstract

Previous work using downscaled global circulation output has examined the likely spatial characteristics of future climate change in Ireland (Sweeney and Fealy, 2003). These likely changes have been shown to have potentially large effects on water resources and especially on flood and drought frequencies with increased winter runoff in western parts and decreased summer runoff, especially in eastern Ireland. Uncertainties in projections involving only one GCM, however, limit the reliability of such climate scenarios somewhat for future water resource management. GCMs show considerable variability for areas such as Ireland arising from inherent weaknesses they possess due to problems of scale and feedback. An approach which seeks to overcome some of these uncertainties by the use of multi-model downscaling is presented here.