THE TRENDS IN TEMPERATURE AND SOLAR IRRADIANCE FOR ZARIA, NORTH WESTERN, NIGERIA, BETWEEN 1986 AND 2015

Abstract

This work presents a statistical analysis of the trends in temperature and solar irradiance for Zaria between 1986 and 2015, using average temperature and solar irradiance data. Analysis showed that the average monthly temperature of the first decade was hotter than that of the second decade by 1.20.% and the third decade was hotter than that of the second by 3.22%, and an increase of 2.05% in the average monthly temperature was observed between first and the third decade. The average minimum temperature of the second decade was observed to be higher than that of the first decade by 0.80% and the third decade had an increase of 1.07% over the second decade; hence, a difference of 1.87% was observed between the first decade and the third decade. Furthermore, the solar irradiance of the second decade was observed to increase by 25.69% over the first decade, while that of the third decade was observed to reduce by 17.81% over the second decade. A difference of the solar irradiance of 12.45% was observed between the first and the third decade. It was also observed that the years; 2003, 2009, 2010 and 2013 had the highest maximum annual temperature; while the years: 1993, 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2015 had highest minimum temperature. The result of the analysis shows that Zaria is gradually getting warm and the temperature rise is connected to the solar irradiance in line with the general global trend thereby leading to the global warming concept.