Recent Climate Change (1946-2008) and Possible Effects on Agriculture in North Western Region of Nigeria

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of Geography - Faculty of African Research and Studies - Cairo University

Abstract

Commonly described as tropical wet-dry and semiarid climates, north western region of Nigeria has been affected by temperature and rainfall changes over space and time in the last six decades. This change of climate may affect agriculture which is the most important sector in the study area. Monthly temperature and rainfall data at eight meteorological stations scattered over study area were collected in order to investigate the trends of temperature and rainfall using statistical methods. 62-years time series data was used to compute the trends over the long-term period of 1946-2008 and 32-years from 1976 to 2008 for short-term period which experienced the magnitude of climate change. In general, there is an increase of temperature corresponding with global temperature trends. Rainfall trends were however interrupted by multi-year anomalies over the study period. The magnitude of climate change would differ significantly across the north western region in Nigeria, because people rely mainly on rain-fed agriculture and pastures. Strong relation was noticed between the change of climate and the crops yield in the study area.

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