Climatic characteristics of Botswana

The climate of a location has direct influence on the living conditions of people, and the food and water security and economy of the country. Modeling of climate provides input not only for planning, such as agriculture, renewable energy projects etc., but also it is used to predict possible natural disasters such as floods, draught, etc. In this paper we have used ARIMA modeling techniques for modeling of the maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall, sunshine duration and solar irradiation for a number of locations in Botswana which are representative of climate across the country. Mean monthly averages of measured parameters for a number of years are used. Each data series for every location is decomposed into a deterministic component and a stochastic component. The deterministic, harmonic component provides an insight into the persistence and is useful for the long term planning and applications, such as the sizing of solar energy systems, and the water resource security. The stochastic component is further analyzed using the ARIMA modeling techniques, and models are identified for each set of data series. These models are useful in planning for industries such as agriculture which strongly rely on year-to-year climatic variations.