Washington, March 13, 2007
Sudesh Mehta
NRI scientist, Dr. V Ramanathan of University of California,
San Diego, along with other researchers Jeffrey Vincent and Maximilian
Auffhammer share Prestigious Cozzarelli Prize for 2007
The prize is named for Nick Cozzarelli, the late editor-in-chief
of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of
the United States of America). This year’s awards will
be presented at the PNAS Editorial Board Meeting on April 29,
2007, in Washington, D.C. It was among the six papers awarded
the Cozzarelli Paper of the Year Prize by the journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Papers receiving the Cozzarelli Prize were chosen from the 3,300
research articles published in PNAS in 2006 and represent the
six broadly defined classes under which the National Academy of
Sciences is organized.
PNAS is one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific
serials. Since its establishment in 1914, it continues to publish
cutting-edge research reports, commentaries, reviews, perspectives,
colloquium papers, and actions of the Academy. Coverage in PNAS
spans the biological, physical, and social sciences.
A paper co-authored by two UC San Diego researchers showing that
reductions of air pollution could create agricultural
benefits in one of the world's poorest regions was one
of six awarded the Cozzarelli Paper of the Year Prize by the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
UC San Diego scientists V. “Ram” Ramanathan, a Scripps
Institution of Oceanography climate scientist and Jeffrey Vincent,
an economist in the Graduate School of International Affairs and
Pacifc Studies, collaborated with Maximilian Auffhammer of UC
Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources on the winning paper,
entitled “Integrated model shows that atmospheric
brown clouds and greenhouse gases have reduced rice harvests in
India,” which appeared in the Dec. 4 issue of PNAS. The
paper related trends in Indian rice production to the influence
of climate trends from the 1960s through the 1990s.
Rice harvests increased dramatically in India during
the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s, making
the country self-sufficient in its staple food. Harvest growth
has slowed since the mid-1980s, however, raising concerns
that food shortages could recur in this densely populated developing
nation. Several explanations for the slowdown have been proposed,
but until this paper, none had taken into account the complex
interactions of two pollution-related sources of climate change:
atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs), which form from soot and other
fine particles in the air (collectively termed aerosols), and
the better-known problem of global warming caused by greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide.
In the PNAS paper, Auffhammer, Ramanathan and Vincent analyzed
historical data on Indian rice harvests and examined the combined
effects of atmospheric brown clouds and greenhouse gases on growing
conditions. They found that the combined effects were negative
and were greater after the mid-1980s than before, coinciding with
the observed slowdown in harvest growth. They estimated that harvests
would have been 20 to 25 percent higher during some years in the
1990s if the negative climate impacts had not occurred.
