Climate change: NiMet to install 100 weather stations


The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has said it will install additional 100 weather stations across the country to reduce the consequences of escalating weather conditions. 

NIMET’s Director-General, Prof Abubakar Mashi, who disclosed this at the World Meteorological Day in Abuja recently, added that natural disasters, failure of climate change adaptation and mitigation, and water crises were the four highest four climate risks in 2018.

This is just as he said the costs of natural disasters were on the rise.  

According to him, weather and climate data, products and services produced by the agency is critical to combating Climate Change through adaptation and mitigation strategies.

According to him “On March 14, one of the worst tropical storms (Cyclone ldai) made a landfall in Mozambique where it almost completely destroyed Beira, coastal town and also adjacently affected Zimbabwe and Malawi.

“As such, 2018 was found to be one of the four warmest years on record and was the warmest year without an El Nino. 

“Already, 2019 has already begun with pockets of extreme events in form of severe storms currently ravaging Mozambique and parts of Australia.

“This came after the passage of Polar Vortices as well as soaring temperature of about 50 degrees Celsius in Australia recently. Long-term climate change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions commits our planet to a warmer future with more extreme weather and water shocks.”

However, Marshi said NiMet is positioned to continue to meet our weather and climate challenges in 2019 and beyond.

He said NiMet “has continued to invest efforts to support climate-smart decision-making to increase resilience and adaptation to changing climate.

“In the last two years, the agency has invested heavily in the establishment and upgrading of meteorological observatories to increase the dense network of observing stations across the country.

“The agency has found it richly rewarding in terms of data generation for improved service delivery to all sectors of the economy.

“On this alone, we have so far established 63 additional weather stations across higher institutions, including secondary schools and still targeting to install additional 100 stations within this year.” he said.

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