2021 Nobel Physics Prize Honors Climate Modeling and Complex Systems
Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi win the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics for their groundbreaking work on complex physical systems. The award highlights crucial advancements in climate prediction and the understanding of disorder.
Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi win the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics for their groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of complex physical systems. The prestigious award is worth 10 million Swedish krona and is split evenly, with Manabe and Hasselmann sharing one half and Parisi taking the other half.
Manabe and Hasselmann earn their share of the prize for the physical modeling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability, and reliably predicting global warming. Parisi receives his half for discovering the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.
The common thread connecting this year's diverse research is the study of disorder and fluctuations within complex systems. According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, understanding how disorder and fluctuations work together allows scientists to make reliable predictions about seemingly chaotic phenomena. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the laureates receive their Nobel medals in their home countries rather than at a ceremony in Stockholm.