Comparative Analysis of Atmospheric Horizontal Visibility and Meteorological Variables in the Niger Delta Region Nigeria

Abstract

This work represents a comparative study of monitored atmospheric horizontal visibility datasets from (NIMET) over the Niger Delta region Nigeria (4.15N-7.17N, 5.05E-8.68E) using six locations (akure, warri, Owerri, Uyo,calabar and Portharcourt) within the area for a  period of 31 years between 1981-2012, and Monthly mean datasets of meteorological parameters such as wind speed and relative humidity from National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) for the same period extracted with the grid analyses display systems (GRADS). The objectives were to compare the trends and also highlight their similarities and differences and to also examine how these data sets compare with each other in representing the region. The three datasets show significant similarity in the trends of visibility variability at each of the locations with decreased visibilities for Portharcourt, Uyo and Calabar and increased visibilities in Akure, Owerri and Warri respectively. The annual visibility variability indexes from (NIMET) shows significant correlation with the (NCEP) datasets for R/humidity at  and Wind direction at  respectively at 90% confidence level from t-test. The study will guide researchers in carrying out studies independently over the Niger Delta region Nigeria.

Keywords: Comparison, Visibility, Meteorological, Parameters, Variables and Niger Delta.