Diurnal Temperature Range as Index of Climate Change in Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study focused on determining the Diurnal temperature range trend as an index of climate change in Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. The study relied on remote sensing data- the ERA5 – Temperature, which is the fifth generation reanalysis from ECMWF. The data for the period of forty (40) years was extracted and used to analyze the annual range, diurnal temperature, trend analysis and daily maximum and minimum temperatures. The results shows a decrease in the trend analysis for the decadal and pentad which means that the difference between the daily maximum temperature and daily minimum temperature is no longer wide. However, the trend analysis carried out for the annual DTR shows a positive trend which shows that the Maximum daily temperature is higher than the daily minimum range in the study area. The study recommended for more intense study of DTR in order to stop over generalizing the index of climate change over a macro area.