THE ROLE OF METEOROLOGICAL VARIABLESDURING THE 20TH-29TH MARCH, 2010 OUTBREAK OF DUST OVER NIGERIA

Abstract

Dust outbreak play a key role in environmental pollution. They have a significant impact on climate-forcing factor by solar and terrestrial radiation by scattering and absorption.The outbreak is not a frequent phenomenon at this period. The outbreak of the dust covered the whole of Nigeria which raises issues bordering on changing weather conditions and its consequence on public health especially during the period 20th – 29th March, 2010.This study investigated the role of some meteorological variables, these variables include (rainfall, temperature, relative humidity and components of wind. In comparing the role of the meteorological variables, it was found that strong northeasterly trade winds invaded the country all through the days of the dust outbreak with maximum wind speed of 8.31ms-1 on the 20thMarch, 2010. The vertical wind profile revealed that the wind field was stronger in the troposphere from the surface to about 400hpa level during the dusty than the clear days, while the wind field is significantly weak from the surface layer to about 700hpa during the clear conditions. Different periods of maximum TOMS AI were observed with values of 3.34 on 23rd, 4.79 on 20th, and 4.05 on 19th over Guinea, Savannah, and Sahel respectively. The temperatures were high above 30oC all through the month of March, reaching the maximum of 41oC.The study found that the TOM AI response to changes in meteorlogical variablesindicating that, the cooler and drier the environment, the longer the concentration of dust particles in the atmosphere and vice versa