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

• Quantification of wetland vegetation communities features with airborne AVIRIS-NG, UAVSAR, and UAV LiDAR data in Peace-Athabasca Delta

  UNC Libraries · 2025-08-02

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Lobe-Switching Avulsions: Delta Geometry Could Determine Locations

  Research Square · 2025-09-25

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Euclid Quick Data Release (Q1): VIS processing and data products

  ArXiv.org · 2025-03-19

  preprintOpen access

  This paper describes the VIS Processing Function (VIS PF) of the Euclid ground segment pipeline, which processes and calibrates raw data from the VIS camera. We present the algorithms used in each processing element, along with a description of the on-orbit performance of VIS PF, based on Performance Verification (PV) and Q1 data. We demonstrate that the principal performance metrics (image quality, astrometric accuracy, photometric calibration) are within pre-launch specifications. The image-to-image photometric scatter is less than $0.8\%$, and absolute astrometric accuracy compared to Gaia is $5$ mas Image quality is stable over all Q1 images with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of $0.\!^{\prime\prime}16$. The stacked images (combining four nominal and two short exposures) reach $I_\mathrm{E} = 25.6$ ($10σ$, measured as the variance of $1.\!^{\prime\prime}3$ diameter apertures). We also describe quality control metrics provided with each image, and an appendix provides a detailed description of the provided data products. The excellent quality of these images demonstrates the immense potential of Euclid VIS data for weak lensing. VIS data, covering most of the extragalactic sky, will provide a lasting high-resolution atlas of the Universe.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Brief Communication: Multisource Remote Sensing Detects Growing Himalayan Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Hazards

  2025-02-07

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract. Increasing outburst flood hazards from melting glaciers threaten Himalayan communities but are difficult to assess. On 16 August 2024, a catastrophic Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) occurred unexpectedly in the Bhotekoshi River Valley, in the Mt. Everest region of Nepal. Using this disaster as an illustration, we demonstrate that combining new and legacy satellite remote sensing technologies for lake water level, turbidity, and extent can detect potential GLOF hazards and help identify these risks.

  PublisherDOI

• Integrating Information from Hydrologic Models and SWOT Remote Sensing Measurements to Estimate Discharge across River Networks

  2025-09-29

  articleOpen access

  The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT, launched in December 2022) satellite has the potential to improve knowledge of river discharge globally, but preliminary SWOT discharge estimates are prone to timeseries bias, mainly induced by globally available prior information. To address this issue, we present a new algorithm designed to improve SWOT discharge. SFOI analytically integrates basin-scale information by applying mass conservation to time averaged SWOT discharge and estimates of regionalized runoff. We test the algorithm on three river basins with drainage areas on the order of 105 km2. We find that when the time averaged SWOT discharge observations are spatially unbiased (i.e. their spatially averaged error is close to zero) the algorithm significantly improves SWOT discharge: the median (interquartile range) absolute value of the normalized SFOI error is 15% (10-19%) for the Willamette River basin, and 12% (7-48%) for the upper Ohio River basin, significant improvements over SWOT discharge error (median values of 30% and 31%, respectively). However, for the Loire River basin, which has high (~60%) spatial bias, the algorithm does not improve SWOT discharge. These results imply that understanding and reducing spatial bias at the basin scale is key for reducing temporal bias in river discharge timeseries. Assessing spatial bias globally, we find that SWOT discharge should achieve its target accuracy (30% discharge error, with most of it temporal bias) even in ungaged basins, enabling SWOT discharge to provide significant improvements to the global water budget.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 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 with pre‐launch expectations. SWOT estimates track discharge dynamics without relying on any gauge information: median correlation is 0.73, with a correlation interquartile range of 0.51–0.89. SWOT estimates capture discharge magnitude correctly in some cases but are biased (median bias is 50%) in others. There are already a total of 11,274 ungauged global locations with highest quality SWOT measurements where SWOT discharge is expected to accurately track discharge variations: this value will increase as SWOT data record length grows, algorithms are refined and SWOT measurements are reprocessed. This first look indicates that SWOT discharge is performing as expected for SWOT data that achieve performance requirements, providing observed information on discharge variations in ungauged basins globally.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Euclid Quick Data Release (Q1). VIS processing and data products

  Astronomy and Astrophysics · 2025-07-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  This paper describes the VIS PF of the Euclid ground segment pipeline, which processes and calibrates raw data from the VIS camera. We present the algorithms used in each processing element along with a description of the on-orbit performance of VIS PF based on performance verification and Q1 datasets. We demonstrate that the principal performance metrics (image quality, astrometric accuracy, photometric calibration) are within pre-launch specifications. The image-to-image photometric scatter is less than percent and absolute astrometric accuracy compared to Gaia is 5,mas. Image quality is stable over all Q1 images, with a FWHM of . The stacked images (combining four nominal and two short exposures) reach IE=25.6 ($10,σ$, measured as the variance of diameter apertures). We also describe quality control metrics provided with each image, and an appendix provides a detailed description of the provided data products. The excellent quality of these images demonstrates the immense potential of Euclid VIS data for weak lensing. VIS data covering most of the extragalactic sky will provide a lasting high-resolution atlas of the Universe.

  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary material to "Brief Communication: Multisource Remote Sensing Detects Growing Himalayan Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Hazards"

  2025-02-07 · 1 citations

  preprint
  PublisherDOI

• The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission (SWOT) Prior Lake Database (PLD): Lake mask and operational auxiliaries

  2025-06-20

  preprintOpen access

  The preprint version of this work has now been formally published. Going forward, please cite the final WRR publication instead of the preprint : Wang, J., Pottier, C., Cazals, C., Battude, M., Sheng, Y., Song, C., Sikder, M.S., Yang, X., Ke, L., Delhoume, M., Gosset, M., Oliveira, R.R.A., Grippa, M., Girard, F., Allen, G.H., Xu, X., Zhu, X., Biancamaria, S., Smith, L.C., Crétaux, J.-F., and Pavelsky, T. (2025). The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission (SWOT) Prior Lake Database (PLD): Lake mask and operational auxiliaries. Water Resources Research , 61, e2023WR036896. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR036896

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Greenland ice sheet runoff reduced by meltwater refreezing in bare ice

  Nature Communications · 2025-09-12 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The contribution of Greenland Ice Sheet meltwater runoff to global sea-level rise is accelerating due to increased melting of its bare-ice ablation zone. There is growing evidence, however, that climate models overestimate runoff from this critical area of the ice sheet. Climate models traditionally assume that all bare-ice runoff enters the ocean, unlike porous firn, in which some meltwater is retained and/or refrozen. We used field measurements and numerical modeling to reveal that extensive retention and refreezing also occurs in bare glacier ice. We found that, from 2009 to 2018, meltwater refreezing in bare, porous glacier ice reduced runoff by an estimated 11–17 Gt a −1 in southwest Greenland alone, equivalent to 9–15% of this sector’s annual meltwater runoff simulated by climate models. This mass retention explains evidence from prior studies of runoff overestimation on bare ice by current generation climate models and may represent an overlooked buffer on projected runoff increases. Inclusion of bare-ice retention and refreezing processes in climate models therefore has immediate potential to improve forecasts of ice sheet runoff and its contribution to sea-level rise.

  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