Modelling curves of mean monthly minute-by-minute and hourly relative humidity, air temperature and solar radiation of Ota, Nigeria

Abstract

Agricultural, biological, environmental and physical processes require one or a combination of temperature, relative humidity and solar radiation. One-minute-data of these parameters for Ota, Nigeria, for September - December 2012 were obtained from meteorological centre of the Department of Physics Covenant University. Using MATLAB, diurnal patterns of mean monthly minute-by-minute and mean monthly hourly were fitted. Fournier, Gaussian, Sum of Sine Functions and Exponential models were also fitted, with the accuracy of the models determined from the Coefficient of Determination (R2), Sum of Square Error (SSE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). Best-fit-model was Fourier, the worst being Exponential. Best models obtained in case of minute-by-minute basis occurred when R2 = 0.9998, RMSE = 0.02948 and SSE = 1.237 for air temperature; for relative humidity, R2 = 0.9998, RMSE = 0.1007 and SSE = 14.43 while for solar radiation, R2 = 0.9997, RMSE = 9.301 and SSE = 1.23e+005.In case of hourly basis R2 = 0.9991, RMSE = 0.09226 and SSE = 0.8512 for air temperature; for relative humidity, R2 = 0.9984, RMSE = 0.4976 and SSE = 1.981 while for solar radiation, R2 = 0.9995, RMSE = 6.631 and SSE = 351.7. The results can produce input for weather pattern information planning in Ota, Nigeria.