About me:

Please see my personal webpages which are kept fully up to date on my research

I am a Professor in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter, with over 20 years research experience in Earth System Science. My research focuses on the role of vegetation in the climate system.

I was principal developer of the LPJ model, the World’s most highly cited Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM), and am currently theme leader of community experiments of the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator, JULES. I have published extensively on modelling plant physiology, vegetation dynamics, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystem-atmosphere interactions.

I lead TRENDY, the international activity providing land flux estimates for the Global Carbon Project’s (GCP) annual carbon budget update, and GCP’s regional synthesis chapters.

Broad research specialisms:

Vegetation Dynamics, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Earth System Science, Plant Ecophysiological modelling

Interests:

Stephen understands the vital importance of field-based and experimental science in underpinning modelling activities, i.e. for functional understanding and model evaluation, and to grasp issues of uncertainty relating to temporal and spatial variability and heterogeneity in ecology. These issues remain major challenges for the global modeling community. A close collaboration between field and experimental scientists, modelers and Earth Observation scientists is the key. His main research aims are:

1. To utilize data on ecosystem functioning to advance, evaluate and help constrain global land surface models (LSMs).
2. To apply LSMs in an interdisciplinary Earth system context to address policy relevant issues, relating to the cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen and other biogeochemical cycles.
3. To study interactions between climate, chemistry and ecosystems.
4. To investigate the role of land use and land cover change, and natural vegetation in the Earth system and the provision of ecosystem services.

Qualifications:

BSc. Mathematics (University of York)
MSc. Atmospheric Sciences (University of East Anglia)
Phd Plant Ecology (University of Lund, Sweden)

Career:

June 2011 Chair in Climate Change, School of Geography, University of Exeter.

2009– June 2011 Reader in Integrated Atmospheric and Hydrological Modelling, University of Leeds

2004-2009 Land Surface Scientist, Met Office Hadley Centre, Wallingford, UK

1997-2004 Climate Scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany