Elizabeth Sunguti

SHORT BIO

I am a climate scientist with expertise in climate science, adaptation, mitigation, disaster risk reduction and climate change impact modelling. Coming from a community solely dependent on small-scale rainfed agricultural systems for a livelihood and having observed weird trends and variability in our local climate which affected our backbone, I got a bit bothered by the problem and envisioned myself as part of the solution. I got fascinated in understanding these trends and dynamics in our regional climate therefore taking a first degree in meteorology and later narrowing my scope to climate change for my master’s degree both from the University of Nairobi. I later carved a niche in climate change impact modelling and focused on understanding the impact of climate change on rain-fed maize productivity using observed climate data, RCA4 regional climate projections and AquaCrop model for my master’s thesis. My current research interests are in applying the regional climate model-COSMO-CLM, at convection-permitting scale (2.8km, that allows realistic representation of small scale processes and the complex orography of our region) to evaluate (i) moist heat stress and (ii) extreme thunderstorm dynamics in the Lake Victoria basin under the high-end emission scenario (SSP5-8.5) (iii) operationalize a prototype thunderstorm forecasting system (VIEWS) for the basin based on satellite observations of OTs and Machine Learning techniques (CNN) (iv) provide robust and reliable simulations and (v) Work with local stakeholders to provide climate information to the impact community. With a focus on reducing local vulnerabilities, building resilience and effectively adapting to climate change impacts.