Contact Information
Research Areas
Biography
Dr. Atul Jain’s research focuses on climate interactions with the land physical (hydrology and energy), biological processes (carbon and nitrogen), and the land use/cover changes (LULCC), including agricultural intensification, and how these interactions affect surface processes that exchange energy, water and major GHGs (CO2, CH4, and N2O) between surface and the atmosphere, and contribute to climate change and variability. To conduct this research, Dr. Jain and his students and other lab members have developed and applied a global model-data integration framework, ISAM, in combination with satellite and ground-based observation data at regional and global scales.
Some recent research challenges on which his research lab members have focused on include (1) the impact of LULCC on biogeophysics (water, energy) and biogeochemistry (carbon and nitrogen), (2) climatic effect on permafrost soil carbon storage, (3) CH4 and N2O emissions from wetland and dryland, (4) synergistic effects of environmental ([CO2] and climate), management (irrigation and nitrogen input), and extreme climate events on agricultural crop production, and (5) spatially explicit production- and consumption-based GHG emissions worldwide from the plant- and animal-based human food.
Dr. Jain has won numerous awards and honors, including the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award. He has served as a lead and contributing author for major assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is the author of over 175 scientific articles, including highly cited articles in Nature and Science. Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) has listed Dr Jain as one of the "Most Highly Cited” Researchers, and Reuters has listed him as one of the “World’s Top Climate Scientists”.
Research Interests
Education
Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Atmospheric Sciences
Professor, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Recent Publications
Niu, Z., He, H., Yu, P., Sitch, S., Zhao, Y., Wang, Y., Jain, A. K., Vuichard, N., & Si, B. (2023). Climate Change and CO2 Fertilization Have Played Important Roles in the Recent Decadal Vegetation Greening Trend on the Chinese Loess Plateau. Remote Sensing, 15(5), [1233]. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15051233
Vörösmarty, C. J., Melillo, J. M., Wuebbles, D. J., Jain, A., Ando, A. W., Chen, M., Tuler, S., Smith, R., Kicklighter, D., Corsi, F., Fekete, B., Miara, A., Bokhari, H. H., Chang, J., Lin, T. S., Maxfield, N., Sanyal, S., Zhang, J., & Vignoles, D. (2023). The C-FEWS framework: Supporting studies of climate-induced extremes on food, energy, and water systems at the regional scale. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11, [1069613]. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1069613
Ciais, P., Bastos, A., Chevallier, F., Lauerwald, R., Poulter, B., Canadell, P., Hugelius, G., Jackson, R. B., Jain, A., Jones, M., Kondo, M., Luijkx, I. T., Patra, P. K., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Petrescu, A. M. R., Piao, S., Qiu, C., Von Randow, C., ... Zheng, B. (2022). Definitions and methods to estimate regional land carbon fluxes for the second phase of the REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes Project (RECCAP-2). Geoscientific Model Development, 15(3), 1289-1316. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1289-2022
Deng, Z., Ciais, P., Tzompa-Sosa, Z. A., Saunois, M., Qiu, C., Tan, C., Sun, T., Ke, P., Cui, Y., Tanaka, K., Lin, X., Thompson, R. L., Tian, H., Yao, Y., Huang, Y., Lauerwald, R., Jain, A. K., Xu, X., Bastos, A., ... Chevallier, F. (2022). Comparing national greenhouse gas budgets reported in UNFCCC inventories against atmospheric inversions. Earth System Science Data, 14(4), 1639-1675. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1639-2022
Fawcett, D., Cunliffe, A. M., Sitch, S., O’Sullivan, M., Anderson, K., Brazier, R. E., Hill, T. C., Anthoni, P., Arneth, A., Arora, V. K., Briggs, P. R., Goll, D. S., Jain, A. K., Li, X., Lombardozzi, D., Nabel, J. E. M. S., Poulter, B., Séférian, R., Tian, H., ... Zaehle, S. (2022). Assessing Model Predictions of Carbon Dynamics in Global Drylands. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10, [790200]. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.790200