The effect of climate change on solar radiation in Nigeria

Abstract

In this study, global solar radiation over Nigeria was simulated under an enhanced atmospheric CO2 level using the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) for the period 1981 to 2100 with ECHAM5 GCM as the lateral boundary conditions. The simulated seasonal global solar radiation bias for the RegCM3 with NIMET and NASA observed datasets in the control period are of similar magnitudes and showed a mixture of persistent positive and negative biases ranging between −10% and 30%. The model generally underestimates solar radiation (biases −10% to −30%) across the whole country in most of the months. In addition, it overestimates radiation (biases +2–30%) over the northern region of the country. Alongside the present climate (1981–2010), three future periods were considered viz: period 1 (2011–2040), period 2 (2041–2070) and period 3 (2071–2100) for the potential future changes. The seasonal potential future changes in period 1 (i.e. potential future changes with respect to 2040) showed a reduction in the range of 0% (North) to 3.27% (South) whereas more reduction in global solar radiation is observed in period 2 (i.e. 2041–2070 minus present climate) having general decrease ranging from 0.11% to 3.39% with the least value in April (Middle-belt) and the largest in the South zone (March). Potential future changes in period 3 (i.e. 2071–2100 minus present climate) is generally characterized with mixed increase and decrease in global solar radiation across the country than the previous two periods (1 and 2). For the annual potential future changes, RegCM3 model predicted a decrease in solar radiation towards the end of the century with more reduction found in the South zone and the least in the North region. Furthermore, future changes in global solar radiation across the zones in all the periods are however found to be insignificant at p⩽0.01.