POPULATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE “NIGERIA CASE STUDY”

ABSTRACT

Climate unpredictability and change in climatic parameters have direct influence on environment and human existence. A negative change in the climate, always have its corresponding dysfunctional impacts on man and the ecosystem globally or locally. Flooding poor agricultural yields famine, and even death are some of the catastrophic effects of drastic climate change.

Knowledge and information on the climatic variation parameters in an environment is very vital for environmental study assessment and proper planning. Therefore, the importance of knowing the future climatic variation parameters cannot be under-estimated.

This research was aimed at the determination of the future climatic variation parameters of Nigeria for the next fifty years (2000-2050). Due to the complex and multinational nature of the variables involved, the parameters considered in the work were limited to temperature and rainfall. Statistical downscaling concept was adapted to the WORLDCLIM past and future data for 50years to obtain climatic parameters for Nigeria. Past temperature   and rainfall data were also obtained from the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) to check the validity of the past   WORLDCLIM data at the national level . DIVA-GIS and Arc-GIS were basically used in this research. Further corrections were applied to the future WORLDCLIM data to model climatic variation parameters for Nigeria.

Polynomials were developed to represent the predicted climatic variation parameters of some parts of Nigeria, as case study. A database of the projected climatic variation parameters of all Local Government Areas in Nigeria was developed.   Also, twelve (12) base-maps were created which attributes and depicts the predicted climatic variation parameters for every month. Results of future climatic prediction, 2000-2050, show that the Northern region will experience more decrease in rainfall even during wet season resulting in desertification while the Southern region will experience a reverse situation. The socio-economic consequences of the climatic variations were discussed. The results obtained provide advance information for various stakeholders to make adequate   provision for the future.