Huiyi Yang joined  NRI in May 2020. His research focuses on using modelling approaches to understand climate change and air pollution impacts on crop production and food security, especially for those regions most vulnerable to climate change.  He also has interests in assessing uncertainty and adaptation approaches to climate change.

Huiyi obtained his BSc and PhD from the University of Leeds. He initially trained in climate and atmospheric science and then expanded his research into climate change impacts on agriculture through his work at the University of Exeter and Rothamsted Research. This broadening of expertise has made  his work more interdisciplinary and has positioned him well for  contributing substantively to this growing area of research.

Huiyi has extensive experience in numerical modelling. He developed a new crop (i.e. winter wheat) within the Met Office Land Surface Model (LSM) JULES/JULES-Crop and evaluated the air pollution impacts on crop yield/production and the regional carbon cycle. He used the GLAM crop model to access the crop yield and failure rates for the East Asian Monsoon region under a geoengineered climate. He also used the SPACSYS model to simulate the crop rotation system for the Loess region.

Huiyi began his career studying radiation effects on the atmosphere using an LEM model focusing on evaluating the response of the atmosphere to using observed ice particle shapes in radiation rather than the often-used idealised shapes.   Huiyi has been involved in many international modelling projects, including developing a case study for a model inter-comparison project on cirrus clouds (GCSS WG2).

• Yang, Huiyi, Dobbie, Steven, Ramirez-Villegas, Julian, Chen, Bing, Qiu, Shaojun, Ghosh, Sat and Challinor, Andy (2020) ‘South India projected to be susceptible to high future groundnut failure rates for future climate change and geo-engineered scenarios’, Science of The Total Environment. Elsevier, 747, p. 141240. doi: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2020.141240. GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28992/
• Chen, Changqing, van Groenigen, Kees Jan, Yang, Huiyi, Hungate, Bruce A., Yang, Bing, Tian, Yunlu, Chen, Jin, Dong, Wenjun, Huang, Shan, Deng, Aixing, Jiang, Yu and Zhang, Weijian (2020) ‘Global warming and shifts in cropping systems together reduce China’s rice production’, Global Food Security. Elsevier, 24, p. 100359. doi: 10.1016/J.GFS.2020.100359. GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28847/
• Chen, Bing, Wu, Chenglai, Liu, Xiaohong, Chen, Liangfu, Wu, Jian, Yang, H., Luo, Tao, Wu, Xue, Jiang, Yiquan, Jiang, Lei, Brown, Hunter Y., Lu, Zheng, Fan, Wenxuan, Lin, Guo, Sun, Bo and Wu, Mingxuan (2019) ‘Seasonal climatic effects and feedbacks of anthropogenic heat release due to global energy consumption with CAM5’, Climate Dynamics. Springer, 52(11), pp. 6377–6390. doi: 10.1007/s00382-018-4528-1.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28848/
• Chen, Ji, Luo, Yiqi, García-Palacios, Pablo, Cao, Junji, Dacal, Marina, Zhou, Xuhui, Li, Jianwei, Xia, Jianyang, Niu, Shuli, Yang, Huiyi, Shelton, Shelby, Guo, Wei and van Groenigen, Kees Jan (2018) ‘Differential responses of carbon-degrading enzyme activities to warming: Implications for soil respiration’, Global Change Biology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 24(10), pp. 4816–4826. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14394.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28849/
• Gao, Yao, Markkanen, Tiina, Aurela, Mika, Mammarella, Ivan, Thum, Tea, Tsuruta, Aki, Yang, Huiyi and Aalto, Tuula (2017) ‘Response of water use efficiency to summer drought in a boreal Scots pine forest in Finland’, Biogeosciences, 14(18), pp. 4409–4422. doi: 10.5194/bg-14-4409-2017.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28868/
• Yang, Huiyi, Dobbie, Steven, Ramirez-Villegas, Julian, Feng, Kuishuang, Challinor, Andrew J., Chen, Bing, Gao, Yao, Lee, Lindsay, Yin, Yan, Sun, Laixiang, Watson, James, Koehler, Ann-Kristin, Fan, Tingting and Ghosh, Sat (2016) ‘Potential negative consequences of geoengineering on crop production: A study of Indian groundnut’, Geophysical Research Letters. doi: 10.1002/2016GL071209.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28850/
• Butt, E. W., Rap, A., Schmidt, A., Scott, C. E., Pringle, K. J., Reddington, C. L., Richards, N. A. D., Woodhouse, M. T., Ramirez-Villegas, J., Yang, H., Vakkari, V., Stone, E. A., Rupakheti, M., S. Praveen, P., G. van Zyl, P., P. Beukes, J., Josipovic, M., Mitchell, E. J. S., Sallu, S. M., Forster, P. M., and Spracklen, D. V.: The impact of residential combustion emissions on atmospheric aerosol, human health, and climate, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 873–905, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-873-2016, 2016.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28865/
• Yang, Huiyi, Dobbie, Steven, Herbert, Ross, Connolly, Paul, Gallagher, Martin, Ghosh, Sat, Al-Jumur, Sardar M. R. K. and Clayton, James (2012) ‘The effect of observed vertical structure, habits, and size distributions on the solar radiative properties and cloud evolution of cirrus clouds’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 138(666), pp. 1221–1232. doi: 10.1002/qj.973. GALA Link: under review
• Yang, H., Dobbie, S., Mace, G. G., Ross, A. and Quante, M. (2012) ‘GEWEX Cloud System Study (GCSS) cirrus cloud working group: development of an observation-based case study for model evaluation’, Geoscientific Model Development. Copernicus GmbH, 5(3), pp. 829–843. doi: 10.5194/gmd-5-829-2012. GALA Link: under review

Huiyi’s research interests focus on interaction between agriculture, climate and humans. He is interested in developing a better understanding of:

• Development and evaluation of LSM and crop models by using observational data from field experiments.
• The impact of climate (e.g CMIP, GeoMIP etc) and environmental factors (ozone, aerosol, etc) on crop yield/production, and the consequent social-economic impacts.
• Evaluating the feasibility of adaptations under different weather conditions especially brought about by climate change, such as drought or high temperature.
• Regional and global impacts on water, carbon, and the nitrogen cycle due to climate change.

Field experimental science is fundamental and of vital importance for underpinning modelling work. This is still the key challenge for modelling communities to understand the impact of climate and environmental changes on agriculture and human societies properly. To fulfil the gap, Huiyi has collaborated closely with field scientists to develop and evaluate models. Huiyi is also interested in combining statistics with LSM and crop models to improve model predictions.

Huiyi has past experience contributing to the following teaching at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds:

• Computer Systems and Programming (SOEE2240)
• Intermediate Mathematics for Env Scientists (SOEE1300)
• Advanced Mathematics for Env Scientitsts (SOEE1310)
• Advanced Mathematics for Scientists (SOEE2340)

• 2018-2021: Rothamsted Research. Research grant, The critical zone ecosystem service integrated system model of the Loess Plateau (CZIMLP)
• 2017-2019: University of Exeter. Research grant, The Climate Science for Service Partnership China (CSSP-China) Air pollution risk to agriculture and forest health in China.
• 2012-2015: Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. Research grant, Parameterization of ice habit vertical structure in GCM (PI).

Organising committee of UK-China Oversea Scholar Conference (UCOS), Leeds, UK, (2015).