Did you know that Ireland's western seaboard has one of the richest "wave climates" in the world, ripe for exploitation as a wave energy resource? You probably didn't. Nor did you know that marine scientists studying temperature changes in the waters of the Pacific Ocean warned that central Europe would get more rain than usual this summer. What they couldn't predict with confidence was that the rain would be torrential, bringing massive flooding to Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. Fears about the impact of climate change, and the much publicised changes in weather patterns brought by the periodic El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific are helping to power a surge of interest in marine research.
Marine scientists have for years studied their own local patches or sent research vessels into the oceans to measure depths, temperatures and currents, but governments are now demanding answers to difficult questions about the oceans.
How will rising sea levels affect national coastlines? How much can a species be fished before stocks collapse? How can we predict the arrival of algal blooms that kill off shellfish and poison people who go for a swim?
Scientists have been grappling with these issues by turning to one another for help; more specifically, looking for access to data. Just how effectively this has been done can be seen at the International Ocean Data Symposium, a four-day conference at Dublin Castle. It was opened yesterday by the Minister for the Marine, Dr Woods, who last night hosted a State banquet to mark the occasion.
The event is being hosted by the Irish Marine Data Centre, part of the Marine Institute, and has drawn delegates from 22 countries. The UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the EU's Marine Science and Technology Programme have come together to sponsor it.
Dr Woods opened the symposium by indicating that 5,000 jobs and additional turnover worth £450 million was available by better development of our marine resource. Turnover already stood at £900 million and employment at over 32,000. Yet others seemed far more interested in our waters than we were ourselves. Private companies, excluding the oil companies, currently do six to eight times as much research off our coasts as the State does, , he said.
The delegates are in Dublin to discuss the various systems established to allow the sharing of marine data and how they might be improved for the future. Scientists start with data, which can be used to derive information that can be given to policy-makers looking for answers, explained Ms Bronwyn Cahill, manager of the Marine Data Centre.
This sharing of data provided the centre with the information about our promising wave statistics. "Ireland has one of the richest wave climates in the world," she said, this based on studies done in 1995. The centre collates data on our ocean resource and makes this available to other research centres abroad.
The potential of this resource dwarfs our typically landlocked view of this country, suggested the institute's director, Dr Peter Heffernan. Dry land represents only 10 per cent of the area Ireland controls. Land and seabed together represent 220 million acres, he said.
As a maritime country Ireland needs to know about the seas around it and needs the information available from marine researchers, Dr Heffernan said. "Our future is intrinsically linked to this data resource."
The symposium continues until Saturday, October 18th.