Augustine Osayande
7 November 2009
Jalingo — The British High Commission in Nigeria through the European Union 'Low Carbon High Growth Strategic Programme Fund' has funded the construction of automated weather station for the Nigerian Montane Forest Project base in Mambilla Plateau, Taraba State under the Directorship of Dr Hazel Chapman from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Speaking to THISDAY, Chapman said the high-tech automatic weather station was one of its kind in the country because its logs data including air temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall, solar radiation, soil moisture and temperature every two minutes and the data is then e-mailed back to the University of Canterbury, New Zealand where it would be analysed by Dr Peyman Zawar-Reza and Dr Steve George who are climatologists
Monthly, he said, data from the station would also be sent to the Commissioner of Environment of Tataba State and Taraba State University. This would give the students opportunities to learn how to interpret climate data. They would learn how to evaluate climate change models. The data would also allow the recognition of the climate effect of local deforestation/overgrazing/land use change.
She added that summaries of their analysis would be released free of charge to Nigerian and international researchers in order to enhance research into the long term sustainable management of sub-Saharan African montane forest ecosystems, with particular emphasis on the Nigerian highlands.
She said the idea of building a weather station at the Ngel-Nyaki forest reserve was conceive by Dr. Peyam Zawar Reza of Canterbury University in New Zealand but it took three years to find who would fund the project. She commended the British High Commission in Nigeria for its assistance in ensuring the success of the project.
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