Aerosol Optical Depth Trends over Different Regions of Nigeria: Thirteen Years Analysis

Abstract

Recurrent challenges of the theoretical estimation of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) are traceable to bogus assumption in its mathematical model.The objective of this paper is to propound a model that could describe the aerosol distribution sizes per time.The physics of the salient properties of aerosol within the Stokes regime was discussed.The mathematical model was applied to six locations within 335 ˟ 230 Km2 area of a selected portion of south-west, Nigeria.Though the climatic change is evident via thirteen years ground data set assimilation, the sensitivity of the proposed model was proven to increase by 0.1%.The research affirmed the use of some parameters (e.g.minimum temperature, cloud cover, relative humidity and rainfall) to estimate aerosol optical thickness and by extension the aerosol distribution size over an area.