Green News: Research helps shine a light on future sea levels; MTU Researchers Develop Automated Energy Management Platform: Trinity joins alliance committed to reversing biodiversity decline

STUNNING art installations on Ireland’s coastlines projecting future sea level rise have been developed by the Línte na Farraige project team, in a unique collaboration of artists, climate scientists and geographers from Maynooth University and Trinity College Dublin. The recent art installation in Wexford town (pictured), follows a similar event in the Claddagh, Galway, with more planned in coming months. In February 2014, Wexford town was flooded following Storm Darwin. The line of light indicated by the Línte na Farraige installation at Commodore John Barry Monument, Ballast Bank and Wexford Town Promenade, indicates the predicted rise in sea levels in a similar storm surge in 2150 when sea levels have risen by 1 metre — a moderate climate change scenario.

Art and science

Línte na Farraige is a collaborative project inspired by the light installations of Finnish artists Timo Aho and Pekka Niittyvirta. This art and science collaboration involves climate scientists from Maynooth University and Trinity College Dublin, the Climate Action Regional Offices (CAROs) and Local Authorities, as well as designers from Algorithm and Native Events.

The coastal installations are based on emissions scenarios from Irish tide gauge data and the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 6 (AR6). Línte na Farraige is a recipient of the inaugural Creative Climate Action fund, an initiative from the Creative Ireland Programme in collaboration with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. Solar panels and renewably powered battery packs are used as part of the installation to power the lights, which will only turn on twice per day during a rising tide. Outlining the goal of Línte na Farraige the one of the scientists involved in the project, Maeve Upton, Department of Geography, Maynooth University, commented: "We hope to shine a light on the risks of rising sea levels and storm surges by selecting a number of Irish locations to connect with a diverse array of communities. Our project aims to spark discussion around future sea level rise, emphasising the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and inspiring Irish communities that the future is still in our hands."

Sea level rise and storm surges

Extreme coastal flooding is classed as one of the most threatening and hazardous elements which impacts on human life and infrastructure. The threat of coastal flooding is growing due to changes in extreme weather events and sea levels. Sea level rise predictions used in this project are largely based on data in IPCC AR6, which was released in August 2021. These data predict a global sea level rise of between 0.28 and 1.01 m depending on the emissions scenario (low to very high respectively) by the end of the century. For more information, see the project website: www.lintenafarraige.ie

A TEAM of researchers at Munster Technological University (MTU) has developed a retrofittable energy management platform that enables energy cost savings of approximately 20% and a similar reduction in CO2 emissions.

The O-PENS team plans on spinning out the platform into a start-up company later this year and is currently in talks with potential customers and investors. The innovative energy management platform, O-PENS (Optimise Predict Energy Saver), is designed to facilitate off-setting of peak load tariffs for commercial, agricultural, and domestic end users and enable energy managers in high energy consuming organisations to meet their carbon emissions and energy cost reduction targets.

The system incorporates a real-time pricing structure to enable end users to engage with I-SEM (Integrated Single Electricity Market) pricing.

AT THE UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in December, the University of Oxford and UN Environment Programme announced the launch of the Nature Positive Universities Alliance, of which Trinity College Dublin is a member.

The alliance is a global network of universities that have made an official pledge to work towards a global Nature Positive goal in order to halt, prevent and reverse nature loss through addressing their own impacts and restoring ecosystems harmed by their activities. This push is part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a movement to avert climate catastrophe and mass extinction.

The Alliance brings higher education institutions together to use their unique power and influence as drivers of positive change.