Dubai (PTI): A leading Indian climatologist has won United Arab Emirate's top environment award for his pioneering work on the effect of pollutants in global warming.

V Ramanathan was presented with the Zayed Prize for Scientific/Technological Achievements in Environment by Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, deputy ruler of Dubai, at a ceremony here on Monday. Ramanathan shares the USD 3,00,000 prize money with co-winner and American environmental scientist, Jane Lubchenco.

The Zayed International Prize for the Environment is one of the most important contributions of the United Arab Emirates towards global efforts to promote sustainable development at the local, regional and international levels.

The Prize, instituted in 1999, is open to both individuals and organisations. Awarded every two years in three categories, the prize is meant to recognise and encourage environment achievements supporting and promoting the implementations of Agenda 21 of the UN Millennium Development Goals and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation for Sustainable Development. The total prize amount in the three categories is USD one million.

"He (Ramanathan) demonstrated the positive amplifying effect of water vapour absorption on global warming, the global cooling effects of clouds on climate," an official statement said.

More recently, he made significant contributions to the discovery of the widespread Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABC) phenomenon. (

Ramanathan, one of the world's distinguished climatologists, showed that soot in the cloud led to a reduction in the solar radiation at the ocean surface, heating of the atmosphere and regional climate change in South Asia.

He is also credited with identification of chlorofluorocarbons, stratospheric ozone and other pollutants as significant factors in the anthropogenic greenhouse effect (manmade factors leading to global warming).

Ramanathan is member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Sciences for Developing Countries (TWAS), and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He is also recipient of other coveted environment honours, including the Rosby Award and the Volvo Prize.

The Zayed prize for Global leadership in environment was awarded to Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway.