Laurence C. Smith

About

Laurence C. Smith is a member of the Northern Change Research team at Brown University, which has a long history of excellence in Arctic studies and polar research. The research activities associated with Brown's Arctic@Brown initiative suggest a focus on environmental and geographic changes in Arctic regions, including sea ice travel conditions, river dynamics, and resource development in Greenland. As part of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES), Smith contributes to understanding environmental processes and societal impacts in polar environments, leveraging remote sensing, modeling, and field data to address pressing ecological and geopolitical questions related to the Arctic.

Research topics

• Climatology
• Geology
• Oceanography
• Physical geography
• Environmental science
• Geography
• Ecology
• Biology
• Geomorphology

Selected publications

• Human alteration of global surface water storage variability

  Nature · 2021 · 468 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Coldest Canadian Arctic communities face greatest reductions in shorefast sea ice

  Nature Climate Change · 2020 · 78 citations

  DOI

• A First Look at River Discharge Estimation From SWOT Satellite Observations

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2025-05-03 · 36 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite has the potential to transform global hydrologic science by offering simultaneous and synoptic estimates of river discharge and other hydraulic variables. Discharge is estimated from SWOT observations of water surface elevation, width, and slope. A first assessment using just the highest quality SWOT measurements, over the first 15 months (March 2023–July 2024) of the mission evaluated at 65 gauged reaches shows results consistent…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Supraglacial River Forcing of Subglacial Water Storage and Diurnal Ice Sheet Motion

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2021 · 36 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Surface melting impacts ice sheet sliding by supplying water to the bed, but subglacial processes driving ice accelerations are complex. We examine linkages between surface runoff, transient subglacial water storage, and short‐term ice motion from 168 consecutive hourly measurements of meltwater discharge (moulin input) and GPS‐derived ice surface motion for Rio Behar, a ∼60 km 2 moulin‐terminating supraglacial river catchment on the southwest Greenland Ice Sheet. Short‐term acceleratio…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission (SWOT) Prior Lake Database (PLD): Lake Mask and Operational Auxiliaries

  Water Resources Research · 2025-03-01 · 30 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Lakes are among the most prevalent and predominant water repositories on the Earth's land surface. A primary objective of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission is to monitor surface water elevation, area, and storage change in lakes globally. To meet this objective, prior information on lakes, such as locations and benchmark extents, is required to organize SWOT's KaRIn observations for computing lake storage variation over time. Here, we present the SWOT missi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Sensitivity of the West Siberian Lowland to Past and Present Climate

  NSF · $752k · 1999–2002

Frequent coauthors

• L. H. Pitcher

  Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education

  188 shared

• Sarah Cooley

  107 shared

• Jonathan C. Ryan

  101 shared

• Ethan D. Kyzivat

  Brown University

  100 shared

• Å. K. Rennermalm

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  98 shared

• Tamlin M. Pavelsky

  91 shared

• C. J. Gleason

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  90 shared

• M. G. Cooper

  Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

  78 shared

Labs

• Northern Change Research LaboratoryPI

Similar researchers at Brown University

• J Timmons Robertsh-62
• Kim Cobbh-58
• Amanda Lynchh-51