TITLE:
Surface Temperature Anomalies in the River Niger Basin Development Authority Areas, Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Joseph Sunday Babatolu, Rufus Temidayo Akinnubi
KEYWORDS:
Temperature; Anomalies; River Niger Basin Development Authority Area
JOURNAL NAME:
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences,
Vol.3 No.4,
September
23,
2013
ABSTRACT: The study investigates the trends
in temperature in the Upper and Lower Niger Basin Development Authority Areas
using standardized Anomaly Index, Gaussian Low
Pass and Spearman’s
correlation coefficient. From the data collected and analyzed, the mean annual
temperature and mean annual maximum temperature demonstrated pronounced
temporal increasing trend in the period 1951-2010 while the mean annual minimum
temperature showed no trend. The rate of increase
in mean annual temperature, mean annual maximum and minimum temperatures was
0.45°C, 0.40°C and 0.20°C respectively. The mean annual maximum
temperature warmed faster than the mean annual minimum leading to increase in
diurnal range of temperature. The annual temperature anomaly in the study area
tracks the observed anomalies for the Northern Hemisphere in the 20th century.
The decadal temperature increase is very small particularly as from 1980.