UN to honor Scripps Prof. for work in environmental science.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Prof. Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who works at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is set to receive the United Nations’ highest honor for achievement in the field of environment science.
Ramanathan will receive the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) 2013 Champion of the Earth award. Ramanathan is also Director of the Center for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climate at Scripps.
Ramanathan is receiving the award for his work involving “black carbon,” commonly found in automobile emissions and soot, which can have devastating long-term effects on the health and sustainability of the environment.
Ramanathan’s research project — Project Surya [“Sun”], for which he was vice-chairman, and was conducted via UNEP in 2011 — has conclusively proven that mitigating black carbon emissions can positively affect the environment. He was also part of the team that initially studied and discovered the effects of rampant air pollution on citizens of Asia. The study, carried out in 1997, led to the discovery of the Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs), and Ramanathan is a chair of Project ABC.
The project’s proposed plan could save around 2.5 million lives from respiratory illnesses and save roughly 32 million tons of crops annually, all around the world. It would also prevent roughly half a degree (in Celsius) of overall temperature rise for the next 37 years — the global standard for the average temperature of the entire planet up until 2050, is two degrees Celsius, so a half-degree either way is hugely significant.
Project Surya has received over $150,000 from UNEP since its inception, and has provided low-energy cooking stoves and lamps to poverty-ridden areas of India such as Khairatpur.
Ramanathan is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Additionally, he has been inducted into the US National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He has won the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Zayed Future Energy Prize, and the Volvo Environment Prize.
Ramanathan was born in Maduri, India. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Annamalai University, and his master’s from the Indian Institute of Science.
To read some of Dr. Ramanathan’s own literature regarding climate change and preservation, visit http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/press/index.php.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com