Review

The impact of climate change in Nigeria

*¹Umar S, ²Fagwalawa LD, ³Ali MS and ⁴Isa BI

¹Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts, Sciences and Remedial Studies, Kano

²Department of Biology, Kano University of science and technology, Wudil, Kano state, Nigeria

³Department of Science Laboratory Technology, Kano State Polytechnic, Kano, Nigeria

⁴Department of Biological Sciences, Nigeria Police Academy Wudil, Kano, Nigeria

*Corresponding Authors E-mail: kutamasak@yahoo.com

Accepted 12 March 2014

Abstract

There is a scientific consensus that concentration of green house gases (GHGS) are increasing and that is causing climate change. Scientists have spent decades figuring out what is causing global warming. They have looked at the natural cycles and events that are known to influence climate .but the amount and pattern of warming that has been measured cannot be explained by these factors alone the only way to explain the pattern is to include the effect of green house gases (GHGS) emitted by humans. to bring all this information together the united nations formed a group of scientist called the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC). The IPCC meets every few years to review latest scientific findings and write a report summarizing all that is known about global warming, each report represents a consensus or agreement among hundreds of leading scientists. There era several green house gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways .most came from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electricity production. the gas carbon dioxide, is responsible for most warming other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture (especially from digestive system of grazing animals) nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes and the loss of forests that would otherwise store Co₂. Different green house gases have different heat trapping abilities; some of them can even trap more heat than Co₂. A molecule of methane produces more than twenty (20) times the warming of a molecule of Co₂.nitrous oxide is three hundred (300) times more powerful than Co₂, other gases such as chloroflourocarbons (which have been banned in much of the world because they also degrade the ozone layer)have heat trapping potentials thousands of times greater than Co₂. But because their concentration is much lower than Co₂ none of these gases adds as much warmth to the atmosphere as Co₂ does.

Keywords: climate change, Co₂, atmosphere