Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography

Contact Details

• Tel: 0116 252 3848
• Email: j.kaduk@le.ac.uk
• Fax: 0116 252 3854
• Office: Bennett Building F63b
• Personal Web Page  

Biography

After my first degree in Mathematics, I went on to a Ph.D. in Geosciences studying global carbon cycle modelling. I then continued my research as postdoc at the Department of Plant Biology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, California. This took my research into ecology and the biophysical interactions at the land surface.

I am interested in the interactions of ecosystem properties, climate variations and natural as well as anthropogenic disturbance. I am particularly concerned with the understanding and modelling of the feedbacks connecting ecological, biogeochemical and climatological processes as well as anthropogenic change and their effects on various spatial and temporal scales.

My main tool is an integrated land surface and carbon cycle model that I developed on the basis of SiB2, CASA and my carbon cycle model, SILVAN. The integrated model is also implemented in an atmospheric general circulation model. With this range of models I study the interactions of canopy characteristics, biospheric fluxes and boundary layer properties on local to global scales in response to climate variations in an integrated fashion. I am working on a NERC funded project on Forest Fire Intensity Dynamics is currently developing more accurate ways of characterising carbon emissions from boreal forest fires by integrating satellite derived burned area mapping with fire radiative energy retrieval from thermal remote sensing in collaboration with Prof. Martin Wooster at Kings College London and Dr. France Gerard at CEH.

As a complement to my modelling work I measured eddy covariance fluxes of water, CO2 and heat of a California Grassland which allowed me to gain a different perspective on one of the systems and data underlying my modelling work.

External Activities

I am developing student centered learning and teaching approaches within the interdisciplinary science course i-science at the University, which taught by problem based learning, as well as in projects funded through the New Teaching Initiatives of the University.

PhD Supervision

Current PhD students:

• Umar Bibi “Evaluating the Impact of future oil exploitation in North-eastern Nigeria using land surface modelling” 2009-  Studentship of the PTDF Nigeria (with Heiko Balzter)
• Gong Pan “Fenflux: The short term climate response of carbon dioxide and water fluxes from a regenerating peatland” 2011-  University of Leicester Studentship
• Andrea Hurtado Mendoza-Rosales "Determining the effect of plant carbon allocation on the Climate-Carbon Cycle Feedback through variational Data Assimilation (2012-) Studentship of CONACYT, Mexico. With Heiko Balzter)

Completed

• Egbe Eguavoen
  Modelling Land cover & Land use change in Edo & Delta states, Nigeria (2001-2005)
  Joint supervision with Prof. Andrew Millington, Texas A&M
• Daniel Smith "Biosphere growth patterns and their impact on carbon fluxes from boreal forest fire dynamics" (2005-2008) NERC CASE Studentship. With Heiko Balzter and Prof. Martin Wooster, Kings College London

Research Areas for PhD Supervision

Interactions of biosphere and atmosphere under climate variability and change; global biogeochemical cycling; eddy flux measurements; Climate carbon cycle feedbacks in the Amazon. Methane emissions from temperate wetlands: Measurements and simulation; Climate change impacts on the carbon cycle through changes in plant carbon allocation. Changes in vegetation fire risk.

• Physical Geography Research Themes

Enquiries: If you are interested in studying for a PhD in one of these research areas, please make informal enquiries via geogPhD@le.ac.uk

Most Recent Publications

Kaduk, Jörg, and Los, Sietse O., 2011.  Predicting the time of green up in temperate and boreal Biomes, Climatic Change, 2011, 107 (3-4), pp. 277-304.

Kaduk, Jörg D. and Sietse O. Los. Phenological models for the leaf out date in temperate and boreal Biomes determined from NDVI. Climatic Change.Online First. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-010-9951-1

Ghent, D., Kaduk, J., Remedios, J., and Balzter, H., 2011. Data assimilation into land-surface models: the implications for climate feedbacks. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 32(3) 617-632.

Alexander, C., Tansey, K., Kaduk, J., Holland, D., & Tate, N. J. (2011). An approach to classification of airborne laser scanning point cloud data in an urban environment.
International Journal of Remote Sensing, 32(24), 9151-9169.

Smith, D. R., Kaduk, J. D., Balzter, H., Wooster, M. J., Mottram, G. N., Lynham, T. J., . Stocks, B. J. (2010, June 6). Soil respiration in a fire scar chronosequence of Canadian boreal jack pine forest. Biogeosciences, 7, 1375-1381. doi:10.5194/bg-7-1375-2010

Ghent, D., Kaduk, J., Remedios, J., Ardö, J., & Balzter, H. (2010). Assimilation of land surface temperature into the land surface model JULES with an ensemble Kalman filter. Journal of Geophysical Research D: Atmospheres, 115(19).

Weber, U., M. Jung, M. Reichstein, C. Beer, M. Braakhekke, V. Lehsten, D. Ghent, J. Kaduk, N. Viovy, P. Ciais, N. Gobron, and C. Rödenbeck, 2009. The inter-annual variability of Africa's ecosystem productivity: a multi-model analysis. Biogeosciences, 6, 285-295 (pdf)

C. B. Field, and J. Kaduk, 2004. The carbon balance of an old-growth forest: Building across approaches. Ecosystems, 7:525-533.

Full listing of publications