Professor Smith's research spans the Arctic, water resources, and satellite remote sensing. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and won more than $10M in research funding from NASA and NSF. He has assisted the National Academy of Sciences on abrupt climate changes, NASA with a new satellite mission to monitor global water resources, and the World Economic Forum with issues of Arctic development. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and of the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and his research has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and the Washington Post, among others. His book The World in 2050 won the Kistler Book Award and was a Nature Editor’s Pick of 2012. His second book Rivers of Power was published in 2020.