Dr Sihan Li

Department of Geography

Lecturer in Climate Science

sihan.li@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Dr Sihan Li
Department of Geography
E15
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
Profile

Sihan Li is a Lecturer in Climate Science in the Department of Geography at Sheffield University. Sihan obtained her PhD in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences from Oregon State University in 2017, on large ensembles of regional climate modelling over the Western United States. Her PhD work was focused on modelling the regional response to anthropogenic warming in complex terrain, the changing characteristics of hydrometeorological extreme events, and uncertainty quantification/reduction in climate modelling. She then moved to University of Oxford as a research associate to work on droughts and fires in the Amazonia in response to climate change. Sihan stayed in Oxford as senior research associate to work on hydrological modelling of monsoon rainfall triggered landslides in mountainous Nepal, as part of a large international interdisciplinary project Sajag-Nepal– a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal.

Research interests

Fine scale regional climate modelling, especially at convection-permitting scale; multi-hazard and risk chain associated with climate change and impact modelling of multi-hazards; land-hydrology-climate interactions, predictability of hydrometeorological extremes, extreme event attribution; exploring large-scale and mesoscale dynamical drivers of regional hydroclimate change; climate change impacts on wildfires, forest mortality, land-use change, hydrology and the energy sector; machine learning/AI application in seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasts; Glacial lake outburst flood hazard under current and future conditions.

Current Projects:

Deplete and Retreat: The Future of Andean Water Towers

Sajag-Nepal, a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal (https://www.sajag-nepal.org/)

Attribution and Synopsis of Landslide Impacts from Precipitation (ASLIP) in Southeast Brazil

World Weather Attribution, an initiative to conduct real-time attribution analysis of extreme weather events as they happen around the world (https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/)

Previous Projects: 

Climate and Health Pump-Priming Fund: Dengue forecasting workshop

Attributing Amazon Forest fires from Land-use Alteration and Meteorological Extremes (AFLAME)

Evaluating Extreme Rainfall in Eastern China (EERCH)

The Nature Conservancy/Oxford Martin School Climate Partnership

Forest Mortality, Economics, and Climate (FMEC)

Teaching activities

I currently teach on the following modules:

GEO6807, The Science of Environmental Change

GEO6612, Current Issues in Polar and Alpine Science

GEO6809, Managing Climate Change

GEO11005, Geographical Skills, Methods and Techniques

GEO21012, Unlocking Past Environmental Changes

Professional activities and memberships

Google Scholar profile