In this May 21, 2018 file photo, scientist Syukuro Manabe, of Japan, poses for a portrait during a press meeting after receiving the Crafoord Prize, in Lund, Sweden. Manabe, 90, and and Klaus Hasselmann, 89, were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021 for their work in “the physical modeling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.” The second half of the prize was awarded to Italian scientist Giorgio Parisi, 73. (Johan Nilsson/TT via AP, file)
STOCKHOLM — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for work that found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.
Syukuro Manabe, originally from Japan, and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany were cited for their work in “the physical modeling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.”
Manabe is a professor at Princeton University, where he is the senior meteorologist for the university’s program in atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Don’t miss environmental news like this Click for updates
The second half of the prize was awarded to Giorgio Parisi of Italy for “the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.”
All three work on what are known as “complex systems,” of which climate is just one example.
The judges said Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, “laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how human actions influence it.
Starting in the 1960s, Manabe demonstrated how increases in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would raise global surface temperatures, laying the foundations for current climate models.
About a decade later, Hasselmann created a model that helped explain why climate models can be reliable despite the seemingly chaotic nature of the weather. He also developed ways to look for specific signs of human influence on the climate.
Read the full story here
