People in Ireland face living in “a bloody cold, bloody wet” country if increasingly strong warnings that climate change could interrupt Atlantic Ocean current patterns come true, Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan has warned.

Scientists increasingly raise fears that the so-called Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which regulates the exchange of water between the world’s oceans, is threatened by rising global temperatures caused by climate change.

Temperatures in Europe will plummet if that happens, up to 15 degree for some northern European states, while Amazonian wet seasons will cease and sea levels threatening coastal cities would rise even faster than currently expected, by tens of centimetres.

Speaking to the Kennedy Summer School in Co Wexford, Mr Ryan said that the warnings about Atlantic Ocean currents are “the most terrifying for us” on the island of Ireland.

The deadline for the world’s nations to take action to slow down, not halt, the pace of climate change is tightening, he warned: “If we can’t avoid some of the tipping points [and] we go over a tipping point where it runs away from us, then we can’t hold it back.”

Read the full article by The Irish Times here.