The Interconnectivity Of Weather System And Ozone Concentration Over West Africa

Abstract

The relationship between some meteorological parameters and ozone distributions as revealed by satellite EPTOM over four West African stations namely, Lagos (Nigeria), Dakar (Senegal) Lamto (Ivory Coast) and Ekona (Cameroon) was studied for the period 1997 to 2002. The mean ozone concentration over these stations for the period were 270.8±0.3DU at Lagos, 264.9±0.3DU at Dakar, 269.8±0.3DU and 269.0±03DU at Lamto and Ekona respectively. The average monthly maximum ozone concentration of 288.6DU and 285.1DU respectively were observed for Lagos and Dakar, between July and August, which coincided with the period of tropical summer rainfall over the West African region. This coincidence could be attributed to reduction in the effect of the extra-tropical suction pump (ETSP) action responsible for the transportation of ozone concentration from the tropical stratosphere into the mid and high latitudinal region. This reduction may be due to decrease in the atmospheric heat engine expected to drive the ETSP, asthe tropical surface temperature and evaporation are at their minimum during the raining season. The surface temperature and evaporation at Lagos-Nigeria both had significant negative correlation values of -0.73 and -0.68 with the ozone concentration respectively.

Preliminary Investigation of Total Ozone Column and Its Relationship with Atmospheric Variables

“…Many researchers have reported that the formation and destruction of stratospheric ozone are due to photochemical processes, while its distribution is through transport process; based on the variations of weather pattern of the region. Besides, the variation of total ozone was linked to photochemical coupling between ozone and temperature [10]. Thus, we tend to suggest that the variation of global solar intensity due to changes in climatic and atmospheric conditions may probably explains the spatial distribution of TOC over Nigeria as observed in this study.…”

“…The reduction in the strength of extratropical suction pump (ETSP) action was reported to affects the transportation of ozone. According to some scholars [10] [19], the ETSP affect the distribution of ozone during the tropical rainy season. Similarly, [17] observed that the prevalence of active weather system which enhances the transportation of ozone from the tropical stratosphere to the mid and high latitudes during the peak of tropical rainfall was linked to TOC and rainfall.…”

“…Many research works have been carried out on stratospheric ozone depletion [3] [8] [9], ozone layer depletion and climate change [10] [11], variability of TOC [2] [6] [12] [13] [14], variability of ozone and solar activity [15], and TOC and climatic parameters [16] [17] [18], among others. According to [3], deple-tion of ozone, as well as pollution of ground-level ozone, poses a serious threat to the quality of life on Earth.…”