Marysa Laguë is an atmospheric and climate scientist who studies how the land surface modifies the rest of the coupled Earth system. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science program at the University of British Columbia, and leads the Computational Climate research group.
What we study:
In the Computational Climate research group, we study how changes in the land drive changes in the both local and large-scale climate, by modulating fluxes of water, energy, and carbon between the land and the atmosphere. We use models of varied complexity to test how individual land-surface properties modify energy and water fluxes to the atmosphere, and how those flux changes in turn impact atmospheric dynamics and climate, both locally and in regions far away from the initial land change. We develop the idealized land surface model (the Simple Land Interface Model, SLIM) which couples to the Community Earth System Model and allows users to isolate the effect on the Earth system of changes in individual aspects of the land surface.
The overarching goal of the Computational Climate research program is to understand where the atmosphere is sensitive to changes in the land surface, what particular properties of the land surface modulate climate, and how continentality influences the coupled global climate system. In addition to our main areas of research, we also engage in interdisciplinary research collaborations on a wide range of topics, ranging from macrosystems ecology to the study of exoplanets.
