Abstract
Author(s): S.Sovoe
Even though several reports over the past few decades indicate an increasing aridity over West Africa, attempts to establishthecontrollingfactor(s)havenotbeensuccessful.ThetraditionalbeliefofthepositionoftheInter-tropicalConvergence Zone (ITCZ) as the predominant factor over the region has been refuted by recent ï¬ndings. Changes in major atmospheric circulations such as African Easterly Jet (AEJ) and Tropical Easterly Jet (TEJ) are being cited as major precipitation driving forces over the region. Thus, any attempt to predict long term precipitation events over the region using Global Circulation or LocalCirculationModelscouldbeï¬awedasthecontrollingfactorsarenotfullyelucidatedyet.Successfulpredictioneï¬ortmay requiremodelswhichdependonpasteventsastheirinputsasinthecaseoftimeseriesmodelssuchasAutoregressiveIntegrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. In this study, historical precipitation data was imported as time series data structure into an R programminglanguageandwasusedtobuildappropriateSeasonalMultiplicativeAutoregressiveIntegratedMovingAverage model,ARIMA(ð,ð,ð)∗(ð,ð·,ð).ThemodelwasthenusedtopredictlongtermprecipitationeventsovertheGhanaiansegment oftheVoltaBasinwhichcouldbeusedinplanningandimplementationofdevelopmentpolicies
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