Download Ireland

The Meteorological Service of Ireland
Evelyn Murphy, Meteorologist
Biography – Evelyn Murphy
• Worked initially as a weather forecaster (general
and marine) and broadcaster on Irish public
service Radio and Television,
• Headed up the Marine Unit
• Spell as Head of Training
• Currently Customer Relations Manager
Email: [email protected]
The population of Ireland:- 4.5 million people.
GDP or Gross Domestic Product:- €168 Billion in 2014
Although approx. 22% of this is repatriated to the home countries of foreign multinationals.
GDP composition by sector
Agriculture: 1.6%, (barley, potatoes, wheat, beef, dairy products)
Industry: 27%, (pharmaceuticals, chemicals, computer hardware and software, food products,
beverages and brewing; medical devices)
Services: 71.4%
Main Climate and weather-related hazards:
Flooding - Due to rainfall (localised flooding, river overflow and
groundwater flooding) – leading to disruption to transport, home and
business flooding, crop and animal loss, dam overtopping, collapsed bridges
etc.
Long periods of below-zero temperatures - Damage to buildings and
infrastructure, disruption to transport of goods, services and people.
Wind storms – Damage to buildings; loss of electricity and communications.
Sea ingress and high onshore waves - leading to disruption of maritime
activities, affecting livelihood of fishers, disruption to Ferry schedules, loss
of life of shore fishers, occasional severe coastal flooding)
Background information on Met Éireann
Met Eireann is the meteorological service of Ireland, operating a full suite of
programmes and services to WMO and ICAO standards.
Number of staff: 165
Annual budget €19.5M
Divided as follows:-
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Observing Systems = €6M
Forecasting = €4.5M
Climatology = €1.5M
Tech Support = €2M
Admin = €1.5M
External bodies e.g. WMO, ECMWF, EUMETSAT, EUMETNET etc = €4M
Range of Products
Build and operate our own automatic land weather observation stations;
Co-operate in the running of a marine network of offshore buoys.
Monitor solar and terrestrial radiation, seismic activity, geo-magnetic / declination,
lightning detection and ozone detection.
Services provided to:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Aviation
Agriculture
General Public
Marine
National Utilities
National Road network
Research section – using the Hirlam and Harmonie models for localised NWP
Climatology section – generating monthly, annual and decadal means, extremes etc.
Climate change research – in collaboration with EC-Earth
Organisation Strength:
Public Warnings
Organisation Weakness:
Agriculture.
Funding:
Almost completely Government funded although we access EU funding from
time to time to support our climate change research.
Expectations from this workshop
I would like to be able to facilitate socioeconomic benefit studies of
1) all Met Éireann forecasts to the general public
2) all services of Met Éireann to Government Bodies.




including designing a scoping/concept note
preparing the scope of the work
commissioning the study
communicating the results
Estimate of Climate and
Weather related damages
in Ireland
Estimated annual costs for
flooding – in the order of
€171M - €195M
The most recent wind storm
including, sea ingress repair
costs were in the order of
€42M, to Government. The
costs to private
dwellers/insurance
Companies was extra –
approx €46M – costs to
uninsured private dwellers
unknown.
Costs to Insurance Companies from
recent Irish severe weather events
were as shown below: