Mr. Eoin Moran:

Two were asked, the first of which was on weather warnings and the second was on attribution. Regarding the latter, there are three phases to the developments in which we are engaging. One is the scientific and technical development to improve the attribution so that we can understand and identify the climate change fingerprint that may or may not be present in any particular weather event or sequence of weather events. This is a complex scientific task, as the atmosphere is chaotic, and it involves cutting-edge science in terms of mathematical simulations. We are at the vanguard in that regard and working with leading scientists internationally.

The second phase is about turning that work into an operational service that will provide routine updates, perhaps on a seasonal basis or, depending on the scale of the relevant weather pattern, rapidly afterwards. It depends on the type of weather pattern. If it is a large heatwave or a drought scenario, it is more suitable for attribution studies whereas something that is highly energetic, such as a convective event, is more difficult to attribute in terms of hard science.

The key issue, which has already been touched on in this discussion, is the understanding of that information and its communication to the public. When one communicates any item of information relating to weather or climate to the public, the two challenges are confusion and give mixed messages. The main exercise in our research with colleagues in Europe is about ensuring a single, consistent and coherent approach so that just one message is provided using the very best attribution assessments of past weather events, be they recent or in the past season. We are working on the matter the Deputy raised, namely, improving communication so that the public understands and gets the maximum impact of any information we are providing. I will ask Mr. Walsh to discuss this matter shortly.

On weather forecasting, there has been a silent revolution in the accuracy of forecasts in recent times. This reflects developments in mathematical science, physics and the supercomputing facilities available to us internationally within the scientific community.

Regarding the specific question on weather warnings, I might hand over to Ms Cusack to comment.