Spatio-Temporal Variability of Water Vapour Density over Nigeria using CM SAF Data

Abstract

Water vapour plays a major role in atmospheric processes but remains difficult to quantify due to its high variability in time and space and the sparse set of available measurements. Atmospheric Data from the Department of Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring, Germany, have been used to derive and extensively study water vapour density at five different atmospheric levels for twenty six stations grouped into four climatic regions [coastal, guinea savannah, midland and sub sahelian regions] over Nigeria for the period of four years. Seasonal, columnar and spatial variability with monthly height profile were deduced and observed. The values of water vapour density at low level and mid-level was low and highly vary at the midland and sub sahelian regions compared with the coastal and guinea savannah regions. It was observed that the seasonal and spatial variations of water vapour density depend on geographical location, time, altitude and atmospheric pressure level.

Keywords: water vapour, columnar, profile and spatial