Mr. Eoin Moran:

This is the attribution question. That is what this is about. There are three elements to this, as I have said already. First, the science is in formation so we are working with the best international research networks and the leading centres in event attribution to put in place a reliable, consistent and authoritative system to be able to describe whether we can detect the fingerprint of climate change for any particular event. That is what is happening. Second, we also want to ensure that is an operational system in terms of science, so that is being built as well. Third is the way we develop the understanding and how we communicate attribution information to the public, and this relates to what the Deputy was saying. Attribution information is slightly different from the normal weather information that we get. We all live in a straightforward deterministic world and we do not live in a probabilistic world. We cannot deal with probabilities because that is no use to us in reality if we want to decide whether we will have a picnic or put our sandbags out. Attribution provides us with likelihoods and percentages. For example, we could say that it is more likely that a particular event such as an intense downpour is due to a warming world. That is a general comment but to focus specifically on a particular event in that manner is quite powerful information and is a wonderful way of being able to communicate the impact of climate change to the public.

I am not aware of the specific interview the Deputy was referring to, but the general communication that we would provide on any particular event would be to describe the general modification that has taken place in the dynamics of the atmosphere due to climate change and then to relate that to a particular event in the way that Mr. Walsh has pointed out. In the absence of any specific attribution study on a particular event, it is very difficult to say that the particular event in question was due to climate change. We tend to rely on the general commentary that describes how climate change can affect any particular weather event in a general way.