Meteorology and Climate Science

The focus of this Course is to impart useful knowledge to students and to enhance their skill in soil water management via field and laboratory practicals. As a practical course, it meets the need of students in other fields, such and soil and water engineering and agro-meteorology. Topics to be covered include nature and forms of soil water, energy state of soil water (forces acting on soil water),principles of soil water erosion and control, soil water management for erosion control, irrigation of agricultural crops and the hydrologic cycle.

This course briefly revises the understanding and knowledge of students in tropical meteorology and presents in-depth knowledge of West African meteorology as well as its peculiarity and uniqueness compared to the weather and climate of other regions in tropical area.The course is also designed to provide the necessary and required knowledge of weather and climate a graduate of meteorology should possess in order to make simple, short range forecast of weather over the sub-region. The comparison of West African weather and climate and other parts of the tropical region allows the student to also understand the weather of other tropical region. This course also introduces the students to the weather of East Africa and its unique wind system due to its high height of the sub-region above mean sea level.Topics to be covered includeWest 2 African Climatology; the pressure, wind, temperature and moisture regimes; the ITD. The winter and summer situations of the distributions.The AEJ and TEJ.Weather system of West Africa; easterly waves, vortices, squall line, thunderstorms and the monsoon. Interdependence of the systems, the significance of the two jets (AEJ and TEJ) to the weather systems. Atmospheric pollutants in West Africa; Dust haze (tropical/extra tropical interactions): fog; mechanisms for occurrence and clearance prospects. Rainfall variability; the “little dry season” of West Africa.Rainfall prediction models; onset and cessation; the present and future trends.East African meteorology; the wind systems and peculiarities.

This course is pre-requisite to dynamical oceanography for students of meteorology. Here, adequate knowledge of basic properties of oceans is introduced to help student have basic understanding of factors that determines behaviour and structures associated with different types of ocean. However, it also meets the need of students in other fields, such as students from department of Fisheries and Aquaculture as a course that provides adequate and useful insight into oceanographic phenomenon that affects diverse operations and activities related to the ocean and marine environment. Topics to be covered include; major ocean currents; characteristics, similarities and connection with atmospheric general circulation, Stratification in the Oceans, Global Ocean Phenomenon (El Nino, La Nina, Southern Oscillation, Upwelling), Water masses, Oceanic gyres, eddies and fronts, thermoclines, internal waves, Ocean convection, ocean pollution, Instrumentation, Oceanographic forecasting.

This course is the first course in Meteorologyexclusively designed for students in Meteorology and other physical scienceDepartments that dealswith 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional spatial data. The focus is to professionally expose the students to the direct application of computer usage by dealing with huge amount of spatial data. It touches all parts of meteorology as it enhances the computational skills of the students. FORTRAN programming language, two data visualization softwares (FERRET and GrADS) would be taught. Applications of some statistical methods for forecasting would be treated as well. As a practical course, the focus is to impart useful skills on the students in order to enhance their computer literacy level and prepare them for other specialised applications to be encountered at higher levels.Topics to be covered are; Review of numerical methods relevant to Meteorological applications: finite-differences and derivative expressions in terms of forwards, backward and centered differences; implicit and semi-implicit formulations. Solution of differential equations with given boundary conditions using the FORTRAN 2 language.Time series analysis and filtering techniques. Statistical analysis applied to, Agrometeorological, Hydro-meteorological and climatological problems. (e.g. evaluation of linear and multiple correlation and regression analysis. Auto-correlation and simple power spectrum analysis.

The course is an elective final year course for students who wish to pursue a career in the environmental aspect of Civil Engineering. However, students who want to pursue careers in other aspects of Civil Engineering but who are interested in acquiring knowledge in the engineering of the environment may find the course very useful. Students in other branches of Engineering may also find the course relevant. The practical aspect of the course helps students to harness the resources present in the environment while safeguarding the health and well being of man. Courses to be covered include solid waste collection and disposal systems, types and effects of air pollution, noise and noise pollution, as well as water quality characteristics and analysis.