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Communicating Climate Change Impacts as Manifested in Extreme Weather: A Case of Newspapers’ Reports in Nigeria

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Handbook of Climate Services

Part of the book series: Climate Change Management ((CCM))

Abstract

This paper examines the public reports on extreme weather events and climate change in Nigeria. The investigation was conducted to show how national media have been reporting extreme weather events in Nigeria. The report on extreme weather events from two major national dailies were assessed. The results showed that extreme weather events reports are not properly described by most national media. The total articles of extreme weather events reported by Vanguard newspaper were 118 and 78 were from the Punch newspaper over the period. The percentages of specific extreme events reported during the study period by the Vanguard are—Flood (75.42%), Rainstorm (21.19%), Windstorm (3.39%), but no report for thunderstorm and drought, while the Punch reported 66.67% of Flood cases, Rainstorm (28.21%), Windstorm (3.84%), thunderstorm (1.28%), but no report for drought. The study concludes that more actions should be taken to sensitize the public about the occurrences of weather events, which is frequent nowadays as evidence of change in the climate.

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Acknowledgements

This work was part of a research project funded and supported through a grant by the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Global Affairs Canada (GAC), under the framework of the Mathematical Sciences for Climate Change Resilience (MS4CR) program administered by AIMS (2018 cohort of AIMS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Ayansina Ayanlade & Foluso E. Omotoso

  2. African Institute for Science Policy and Innovation (AISPI), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Margaret O. Jegede & Oluwatoyin S. Ayanlade

  3. Department of Demography and Social Statistics, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Luqman A. Bisiriyu

Authors
  1. Ayansina Ayanlade
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  2. Foluso E. Omotoso
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  3. Luqman A. Bisiriyu
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  4. Margaret O. Jegede
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  5. Oluwatoyin S. Ayanlade
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ayansina Ayanlade .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. FTZ-ALS, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Climate Service Centre Germany (GERICS), Hamburg, Germany

    Daniela Jacob

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Ayanlade, A., Omotoso, F.E., Bisiriyu, L.A., Jegede, M.O., Ayanlade, O.S. (2020). Communicating Climate Change Impacts as Manifested in Extreme Weather: A Case of Newspapers’ Reports in Nigeria. In: Leal Filho, W., Jacob, D. (eds) Handbook of Climate Services. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36875-3_20

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