Dr. Elkins has authored or co-authored over 90 publications in the fields of global warming and the depletion of stratospheric ozone. His research has covered measurements of atmospheric trace species from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to the heights of the stratosphere. He is the principal instrumental designer for the Airborne Chromatograph for Atmospheric Trace Species (ACATS) that has flown on NASA's ER-2 aircraft. He was the lead author on a paper in Nature that reported the first observational evidence of slowing down in the growth of the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a result of the United Nations Montreal Protocol. This paper has won the 1994 NOAA Scientific Paper of the Year Award. Since Dr. Elkins and his colleagues have won ten NOAA Scientific Paper of the Year Awards. He has received numerous other awards including six NASA's Group Achievement Awards to the 1993-94 Stratospheric Photochemistry, Aerosols and Dynamics Experiment (SPADE), 1994 Airborne Southern Hemisphere Ozone Experiment (ASHOE), the Polar Ozone Loss in Arctic Region In Summer (POLARIS), the SAGE-III Ozone Loss Validation Experiment (SOLVE) Teams, Balloon Observations of the Stratosphere Team (BOS) for the successful September 2003 campaign, and Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) Mission in Costa Rica and Panama in 2007. The Department of Commerce awarded him in 1997 the Silver Medal Award (along with Dr. J.H. Butler, and S. A. Montzka).