Estimation of net radiative measurement of meteorological parameters at Iwo, Nigeria in 2018

Abstract

In this paper, data for about 90 days (3 months) from Universal Serial Bus (USB), wireless weather forecaster touch screen code N965Y installed at Solar Energy and Research Centre (SERAC), Bowen University, Iwo (7⁰37′N,4⁰11′E ), were used to estimate the net radiation (R_n) of the study location. The analyses of the data were done on a simple empirical relationship using MATLAB code for data plotting, curve fittings and other statistical analysis. The data set showed the trend as bimodal with the peak at about 3.2×10⁸Wm⁻²day⁻¹around 160th day of the year in June, and a prominent minimum of about 2.4×10⁸Wm⁻²day⁻¹ in August, which is at the peak of the wet season. Vis-a-vis, the temperature of maxima 34⁰Cand minima at 27⁰C in June and August. Different ARIMA (1,1,1), (0,1,1), (1,1,0), (1,0,0) and (1,0,1) model used revealed the RMSE 19.780, 36.436, 30.825, 99.682, 98.712, MAPE 0.680, 1.684, 1.262, 3.064, 2.904 and MAE 12.867, 32.166, 24.231, 44.898, 41.945 for the solar radiation estimated with ARIMA (1,1,1) as the best model. Therefore, considering the importance of R_n in weather prediction and climate studies, it is highly recommended by the authors that the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria considers and provides funds to the Universities in Nigeria and research centres for their research purpose. More so, it is recommended that during the increase in radiation there should be proper harness of the solar energy for the generation of energy in the city. Since the country is faced with the challenge of energy, the government is hereby encouraged.