Welcome to the Land, Aerosol, and Cloud Interactions (LACI) Group! We are led by Dr. Gabrielle "Bee" Leung at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Human activities impact the atmosphere in many different ways, including changing aerosol emissions, land surface properties, and the background thermodynamic environment. Our research explores where and when those anthropogenic changes are most important for clouds and precipitation.
We use a combination of satellite data, field observations, and cloud-resolving models in our research. Read more about the tools we use here.
Learn more about our current projects here or click the icons below to learn more about our areas of interest!
news
- Read our latest pre-print, where we describe multi-scale deforestation impacts on convection in Southeast Asia. We find that deforestation can have contrasting effects on clouds depending on the time of day and position relative to the deforestation border.
- Bee is in Boulder, CO this week to attend the UCAR Members Meeting and the Early Career workshop.
- Bee gave a seminar to the Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Science at Florida State University. Her talk focused on how the mesoscale spatial pattern of aerosol and land cover changes is crucial for determining their overall impact on clouds and rainfall.
- This is Bee's first day at the University of Wisconsin - Madison! Looking forward to setting up our research group and enjoying the last weeks of a beautiful Madison summer.
- Bee is in Lewiston, Maine this week for the Climate and Radiation Gordon Research Conference. She will be giving a talk on varied cloud responses to deforestation across the diurnal cycle, and a poster on how grid spacing impacts the relationship between environmental moisture and convective mass flux.
- Bee was chosen for the Maria Silva Dias award. The Silva Dias award is given annually by the CSU Atmospheric Science department to a senior PhD student for outstanding research. Bee says, "I'm very honored to win this prize for my work on deforestation impacts on clouds over Southeast Asia, especially since Maria Silva Dias did a lot of pioneering work on mesoscale meteorology and deforestation in the Amazon!"
- Today, Bee successfully defended her PhD dissertation, entitled 'Aerosol and Land Surface Impacts on Tropical Convective Processes'.
- Bee just accepted a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Bee will be moving to Madison in August 2025 to be an Anna Julia Cooper postdoctoral fellow while setting up our research group. Bee starts her tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Fall 2026.