The lush green landscape of Ireland is famous, for this we have to thank the North Atlantic Drift more commonly known as the gulf stream bathing our shores with warm equatorial water, and also the prevailing west and south westerly winds blowing across the Atlantic ocean, on its way picking up millions of tons of moisture some of which is deposited on us with at times it appears monotonous regularity.

The climate of today varies about 10°C between summer and winter, the average for the winter is 5°C in January to 16°C in July-August. The national average for rainfall is 1,100 mm although this varies with locality some mountainous regions in the west receiving as much as 3,000 mm, the island receives on average about 1,300 hours of unobstructed sunshine, the south east coast normally get a little more.

The climate has seen many dramatic fluctuations over the millennia, there is evidence of two major ice events, the last was probably past its worst some fifteen thousand years ago. Giant ice sheets probably a few thousand feet thick covered Ireland, Scandinavia, North America, Britain and Denmark. The ice ground and sculpted the land beneath it gouging out valleys and rounding mountain tops as it monstrous bulk crept imperceptibility along. By about ten thousand years ago the climate was warming and the ice in recession. About five thousand years ago a period of sudden warming occurred, it is unclear what precipitated this, it is thought the temperature then was 2°C above today's levels

It really isn't known exactly when man first came to Ireland, ir may have been some nine to ten thousand years ago. Crossing from present day Scotland, this he may have done on foot, before the rising seas cut off the land bridge. It seems generally accepted that sea levels rose some fifty Metres (164 ft) by the end of the ice age, the island relieved of the enormous overburden of ice also rose but only by a few feet, it is possible to see evidence of this at several places around the coast. The rising sea level is one of the reasons why Ireland does not have the diversity of flora and fauna enjoyed by England. As the ice receded species began colonizing England from the European mainland, some made their way here via the land bridge, access for the late comers was barred by the rising water.

After the ice age Ireland would have been roughly the size and shape it is today, much of it acquired a covering of pine forests, vast low lying areas especially in the central midlands filled with melt water and became lakes, these lakes were almost totally devoid of nutrition and most plants found their conditions hostile to development. One exception being the Sphagnum mosses of which there are over three hundred species, ranging in colour from light green to dark red, all broadly similar in structure, the mosses grew on the surface of the still lakes in massive rafts, the metabolic process of the plant exude acid after a time this brings the pH value of the water to 5, a level which prohibits the growth of other plants, eventually the entire surface of the lake would have been covered.

The dense rafts also prevented oxygen reaching the water; the net effect was that as the plants lower down in the rafts died they did not decay but remained floating suspended by the air trapped within their cells, over the millennia the mosses filled the lakes and ponds totally, and in many cases their surface are today significantly higher than the original lake surface

As the climate warmed the pine forests gave way to the broad leaf species familiar to us today, our ancestors living initially as hunter gatherers and in relatively small numbers would have had imperceptible impact on the landscape.

Ten thousand years in the geological time scale of things is a mere blink. It is sobering to consider that in the millennia ahead all the beautiful landscapes of Ireland, its city's and towns, all the works of man, together with the seemingly immovable and indestructible bastions of eternity our mountains, are not eternal and will one day be ground to sand by the relentless Atlantic and in the far distant future will lie buried in an ocean; metamorphosing to rock, which may rise from the ocean to form a new island or continent on which evidence of mans brief existence on the world will be scant, save perhaps from the climatic change he inflicted upon it.

About three thousand years ago the climate became colder, but only for a relatively short period. By the late centuries BC the climate had recovered to something similar to what we enjoy today. This tendency continued and by the seven hundred's AD when the Vikings began their raids, average temperatures were about 1°C higher than today. During the next few centuries conditions became colder and wetter, the period between the mid fourteen and eighteen hundred's came to be known as "The Little Ice Age." the peak of this was probably in the late sixteen hundreds, many oil paintings of the period survive depicting ice fairs on frozen rivers. From the mid eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries temperatures began to rise very slowly again.

Much is said about global warming as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, the year 2005 seems to have had more than its share of exceptional weather events, whether these are directly attributable to emissions is open to speculation. What we do know is that the world has experienced many massive swings of climate at periods when man was either not around, or if he was did not have the capability to interfere in any significant way.

So what is in store for Ireland climatically speaking? The simple answer is no one really knows, all theories are pure speculation. It appears there is little doubt the ice caps are melting, and it is predicted if emissions are not curbed global temperatures will rise by 2°C by the end of this (21st) century. There appears two scenario's which could be applied to Ireland, the first is no doubt the most attractive, the warmer climate would enable agricultural output to rise by about one fifth, also the range of produce grown would be extended, it is entirely conceivable that we could have our own vineyards, this of course assumes the present level of rainfall would be at least maintained, if it wasn't output would possibly fall below its present level, unless the land was irrigated the cost of which would impinge on profitability.

The other and major danger for Ireland would seem to be that the large amounts of cold water and ice released into the Atlantic would interfere with the Gulf Stream slowing, or in the worst case scenario blocking it completely. The net effect for Ireland and parts of Western Europe, with in effect the central heating turned off, we would experience much colder winters. All this is pure speculation; it would be nice to think that someone will invent an un-polluting power source, enabling us to continue our energy intensive lifestyle, without the lemming effect.