Professor Philip Wookey
Professor in Physical Geography
| Room number: | E10 |
| Telephone (internal): | 27978 |
| Telephone (UK): | 0114 222 7978 |
| Telephone (International): | +44 114 222 7978 |
| Email: | P.Wookey@Sheffield.ac.uk |
Phil graduated in 1984 with a BSc Combined Honours in Biology and Geography from the University of Exeter, and completed a PhD in 1988 at Lancaster University and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology on the Effects of Dry Deposited Sulphur Dioxide on the Decomposition of Forest Leaf Litter. After a post-doctoral term at Lancaster University, continuing with air pollution research for the EU, Phil’s career path took him to the Arctic (in 1991), where he has continued to research ever since. His first academic position, however, was back at Exeter as Lecturer in Ecology, where he stood-in for Professor Jo Anderson while Jo was seconded to Rothamsted International. Since then Phil has held appointments at Royal Holloway, University of London (Lecturer in Environmental Geography; 1996 – 1997), the University of Uppsala, Sweden (Associate Professor, then Docent, and finally Professor in Physical Geography; 1997 – 2004), and then back to the UK as Reader, then Professor of Ecosystems Ecology (2004-2009), at the University of Stirling.
Research |
I am a biogeochemist/ecosystems ecologist with an emphasis on global change science and a formal training in both geography and biology. I have a keen interest in placing ecological processes into their temporal and spatial contexts within the Earth System. Essentially I want to understand how ecosystems work, how they respond to the environment (and environmental change) and how they, in their turn, influence the Earth System (ie the carbon cycle and climate system). My research has focused on:
The research has often been based upon the combined use of field experiments, and more tightly controlled laboratory and growth chamber studies (including ‘microcosms’), to test hypotheses relating principally to the impacts of air pollution and environmental change on ecosystem/biogeochemical processes (eg nutrient cycling, soil organic matter dynamics, and trace gas fluxes), plant ecophysiology and community ecology, and soil organisms. Important to the research has been the use of environmental gradients (including important ecological transition zones, such as the forest-tundra ecotone), and multi-site studies (eg ITEX, the International Tundra Experiment) to understand the role of geographical pattern and scaling issues. Since the early 1990s much of my work has been conducted in the Arctic, and I am particularly interested in cryosphere/biosphere interactions, and how these are coupled with the atmosphere and climate system. Research highlights have been the publication of three International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) meta-analysis papers (in Ecological Monographs, PNAS and Ecology Letters; all citation classics) and a ‘most-cited’ paper in Global Change Biology considering the ‘cascading’ implications of shifting vegetation community types in the Arctic and alpine in response to climate change. Work conducted as part of the International Polar Year (IPY) ‘ABACUS’ project was also published in Nature Climate Change in 2012; this hints at some looming and unwelcome ‘surprises’ in the global greenhouse, and challenges the validity of some of the basic logic underpinning key models of the global carbon cycle and climate system. Current research projects
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Teaching |
Key inspirational people in school and university sparked my enthusiasm for geography (and biology) and I aim to have the same kind of influence on others. The challenge, for me, is to instil a fascination with the ‘Earth system,’ with its interacting spheres and realms (including Humankind as part of the biosphere); the rest follows. Over the years I’ve taught in the UK, Sweden and Norway, and this has covered the usual formats, but also with a strong emphasis on field teaching (including residential field-courses in the Swiss Alps, Portugal, southeastern Spain, Sweden and Norway, as well as day-trips in southwest England, Sweden and Scotland). It’s also important to me that my teaching is ‘research-led’ wherever possible; ie it reflects my and other researchers’ work, and how the process of ‘doing science’ actually plays-out. I’ve found it’s also good to be challenged by students; that can really help to sharpen my arguments (or maybe even ditch them occasionally!). Phil teaches on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses including:
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Professional Activities |
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Key Publications |
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Other information |
Chair of the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) (1996 – 2003). Bergstedtska Prize winner (2004) Kungliga Vetenskaps-Societeten i Uppsala (The Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala). Although, in career terms, Phil is travelling south (since 1997 from Uppsala, via Stirling, to Sheffield) he is passionate about ‘The North’, and attributes his love of cold, snowy and windswept places to his maternal heritage (from Sutherland, in the north of Scotland), going on expedition to North Iceland as an undergrad, and reading Jack London novels. Phil’s prospects of completing the Munros of Scotland took a step backwards upon accepting the job in Sheffield, although he still looks forward to trying. As colleagues and friends would attest, however, he is now built for comfort not speed. Apart from hill-walking, Phil’s a sedate skier, a mediocre badminton player and would love to learn fly fishing but never really has the time. His ‘top tip’ for fieldwork reading material would be The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (first published in 1922). This is about polar exploration, science and suffering, told by someone utterly disarming, brave and not conforming to the stereotypes of the genre. |