Dr Zhongwei Liu

I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher at National Centre for Earth Observation, University of Leicester. My research interests are associated with wildfire activities, particularly the attribution study of fire weather extremes.

My research journey in wildfires started with my PhD project at Coventry University, which aims at building a seamless, globally-applicable framework for assessing past, present and future risk in wildfire activity. Focus throughout was given to a series of important, often overlooked, conceptual and technical challenges in event attribution study, including evaluation and selection of climate models. Case studies were delivered to demonstrate the value of linking attribution of recent wildfire events with future risk assessment. 

I graduated from the University of Leeds with a master of research degree in Climate and Atmospheric Science within the School of Earth and Environment. Prior to my move to Leeds, I completed two bachelor degrees in Applied Mathematics and Meteorology at the University of Reading and in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST) in China. 

Liu, Z., Eden, J. M., Dieppois, B., Conradie, W. S., & Blackett, M. (2023). The April 2021 Cape Town Wildfire: Has Anthropogenic Climate Change Altered the Likelihood of Extreme Fire Weather?. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 104(1), E298-E304.

Liu, Z., Eden, J. M., Dieppois, B., & Blackett, M. (2022). A global view of observed changes in fire weather extremes: uncertainties and attribution to climate change. Climatic Change, 173, 14.

Liu, Z., Eden, J., Dieppois, B., Drobyshev, I., Gallo, C., & Blackett, M. (2022). Were meteorological conditions related to the 2020 Siberia wildfires made more likely by anthropogenic climate change?. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103(3), S44-S49.

• Climate change increases the risk of extreme wildfires around Cape Town – but it can be addressed
  Stefaan Conradie & Zhongwei Liu
  20/04/23
• Climate change behind the 2021 Table Mountain fire – study
  Zhongwei Liu, Jonathan Eden, Bastien Dieppois, Stefaan Conradie & Matthew Blackett
  2/03/23
• Cape Town’s 2021 runaway wildfire: an effect of climate change
  Zhongwei Liu, Jonathan Eden, Bastien Dieppois, Stefaan Conradie & Matthew Blackett
  27/02/23
• How the 2021 UCT fire ties into climate change, and extreme fire weather in Cape Town’s future
  Zhongwei Liu, Jonathan Eden, Bastien Dieppois, Stefaan Conradie & Matthew Blackett
  6/02/23

• Workshop/Training - International Mixte Laboratory NEXUS/GDRI ActNAO
  Bastien Dieppois (Keynote Speaker), Job Ekolu (Keynote Speaker), Zhongwei Liu (Keynote Speaker) & Sivarama Krishna Reddy (Keynote Speaker)
  13 Nov 2023 → 14 Nov 2023
• 20^th Swiss Climate Summer School 2022: Extreme weather and climate: from atmospheric processes to impacts on ecosystems and society
  Liu, Z., Eden, J., Dieppois, B., and Blackett, M.: Multi-model attribution of extremes in fire weather intensity and duration using CMIP6 ensembles, 2022.
  28 Aug 2022 → 2 Sep 2022

• Legacies Fund offered by Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) in 2023 & 2022
• Poster prize awarded by RMetS Student & Early Career Scientists Conference 2022
• Nominee of 'PRG of the Year 2022' within Coventry University
• 'Best Oral Presentation' awarded by MeteoXchange Student & Early Career Scientists Conference 2022

Liu, Z., Eden, J., Dieppois, B., Drobyshev, I., Conradie, S., Gallo, C., and Blackett, M.: Collective attribution and future risk assessment of recent high-impact wildfire events, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-14441.

Liu, Z., Eden, J., Dieppois, B., Drobyshev, I., and Blackett, M.: Identifying sensitivities and uncertainties in the attribution of global fire weather extremes using CMIP6 ensembles, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-10653.

Liu, Z., Eden, J., Dieppois, B., and Blackett, M.: Development of a common definition approach for multi-event attribution of fire weather extremes, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-12487.

Liu, Z., Eden, J., Dieppois, B., and Blackett, M.: Towards multi-method and multi-scale attribution of global wildfire danger, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-20734.

• 2019 - 2023, Ph.D., Coventry University
• 2017 - 2018, Master of Research, University of Leeds
• 2016 - 2017, BSc, University of Reading