Influences of Weather Variables on Solar Radiation Intensity in Port Harcourt, Nigeria: A Quantitative Approach.

Abstract

This study investigates how some weather variables influence solar radiation intensity in Port Harcourt. The data were collected in three months (November 2016 to January, 2017) on daily basis at 5 minutes interval using Cambell Scientific weather instrumentations in Rivers State University meteorological station. These data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 20.0 with respect to daily and weekly averages. Multiple regressions tools at significance level of 0.05 having 92 sample points (n) were inputted .The independent weather variables are air temperature(X₁), relative humidity(X₂), Ambient temperature(X₃), wind speed(X₄), air pressure (X₅) and rainfall(X₆) while the dependent weather variable is solar radiation intensity(Y). The solar radiation intensity ranges from 40.8W/m² to 155.0W/m² with a mean average of 106.2W/m². It was observed that variation in the six independent weather variables do have significant influence on the solar radiation intensity. For a 1% increase in each of air temperature, relative humidity, Ambient temperature, wind speed, air pressure and rainfall; the solar radiation intensity increases by 1,104.90%; decreases by 179.80%; increases by 22.80%; increases by 5,132.40%; decreases by 86.90%, decreases by 448.80% respectively. The solar radiation intensity correlated very strongly with the six independent variables with Pearson Moment correlation coefficient of 0.74 and linear coefficient of determination R²= 0.547.