Delete abstract from rticles::elsevier_article - r

Question

I'd like to knit an article to a PDF document without an abstract. If I just leave out the abstract part in the YAML header, the Abstract headline is still produced in the document. Is there a way to drop this without changing the underlying function or document class?
I've tried such approaches as abstract: false or none which seem to work for some of the other YAML header arguments.
A reproducible YAML header which is a slightly modified version of the rticles package example:
---
title: Short Paper
author:
- name: Alice Anonymous
email: alice#example.com
affiliation: Some Institute of Technology
footnote: 1
- name: Bob Security
email: bob#example.com
affiliation: Another University
- name: Cat Memes
email: cat#example.com
affiliation: Another University
footnote: 2
- name: Derek Zoolander
email: derek#example.com
affiliation: Some Institute of Technology
footnote: 2
address:
- code: Some Institute of Technology
address: Department, Street, City, State, Zip
- code: Another University
address: Department, Street, City, State, Zip
footnote:
- code: 1
text: "Corresponding Author"
- code: 2
text: "Equal contribution"
journal: "An awesome journal"
date: "`r Sys.Date()`"
bibliography: mybibfile.bib
#linenumbers: true
#numbersections: true
csl: elsevier-harvard.csl
output: rticles::elsevier_article
---
So the resulting document looks like this (the Abstract headline is what I'd like to get rid of):
The intermediate LaTex file generated by Pandoc has the following code in it:
\documentclass[]{elsarticle} %review=doublespace preprint=single 5p=2 column
%%% Begin My package additions %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\usepackage[hyphens]{url}
\journal{An awesome journal} % Sets Journal name
\usepackage{lineno} % add
\providecommand{\tightlist}{%
\setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{booktabs} % book-quality tables
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% end my additions to header
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{amssymb,amsmath}
\usepackage{ifxetex,ifluatex}
\usepackage{fixltx2e} % provides \textsubscript
% use upquote if available, for straight quotes in verbatim environments
\IfFileExists{upquote.sty}{\usepackage{upquote}}{}
\ifnum 0\ifxetex 1\fi\ifluatex 1\fi=0 % if pdftex
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\else % if luatex or xelatex
\usepackage{fontspec}
\ifxetex
\usepackage{xltxtra,xunicode}
\fi
\defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text,Scale=MatchLowercase}
\newcommand{\euro}{€}
\fi
% use microtype if available
\IfFileExists{microtype.sty}{\usepackage{microtype}}{}
\bibliographystyle{elsarticle-harv}
\ifxetex
\usepackage[setpagesize=false, % page size defined by xetex
unicode=false, % unicode breaks when used with xetex
xetex]{hyperref}
\else
\usepackage[unicode=true]{hyperref}
\fi
\hypersetup{breaklinks=true,
bookmarks=true,
pdfauthor={},
pdftitle={Short Paper},
colorlinks=false,
urlcolor=blue,
linkcolor=magenta,
pdfborder={0 0 0}}
\urlstyle{same} % don't use monospace font for urls
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}
% Pandoc toggle for numbering sections (defaults to be off)
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}
% Pandoc citation processing
% Pandoc header
\begin{document}
\begin{frontmatter}
\title{Short Paper}
\author[Some Institute of Technology]{Alice Anonymous\corref{1}}
\ead{alice#example.com}
\author[Another University]{Bob Security}
\ead{bob#example.com}
\author[Another University]{Cat Memes\corref{2}}
\ead{cat#example.com}
\author[Some Institute of Technology]{Derek Zoolander\corref{2}}
\ead{derek#example.com}
\address[Some Institute of Technology]{Department, Street, City, State, Zip}
\address[Another University]{Department, Street, City, State, Zip}
\cortext[1]{Corresponding Author}
\cortext[2]{Equal contribution}
\begin{abstract}
\end{abstract}
\end{frontmatter}
\end{document}

Answer 1

Add
\renewenvironment{abstract}{}{}
to your header-includes. This will nullify the abstract environment.