Correlating between global solar radiation and greenhouse gases over Nigeria

Abstract

The need to study the variations of climate change in Nigeria becomes necessary at a time the universe and Nigerians, in particular are passing through challenges due to climate change as a result of emissions. The atmospheric gases have a greater transparency for incoming solar radiation, while the outgoing are trapped and re-emitted back to the Earth. This study correlated between global solar radiation and greenhouse gases over Nigeria using neural network. The results showed that positive correlations exist between solar radiations: CO2 and CH4 respectively, while exhibiting negative correlations with tropospheric ozone and water vapour. Consequently, an increase in 0.1017, 0.1350 units of CO2 and CH4, respectively could enhance the trapping and transmission of solar radiation in the atmosphere, while an increase of 1.1234 and 0.1530 units of tropospheric ozone and water vapour could cause absorption of solar radiation. The trapped energy is re-radiated back to the Earth, this warms up the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth resulting to global warming. Coefficient of determination revealed that 18%, 30%, 20%, and 29%, of the variances of solar radiation being studied is explained by the variance of the water vapour, tropospheric O3, CO2, and CH4, respectively.