2021 Nobel Prize in Physics Honors Pioneers of Climate Modeling
Three scientists win the 2021 Nobel Prize in physics for groundbreaking work on complex systems, specifically for modeling Earth's climate and predicting global warming.
Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi win the 2021 Nobel Prize in physics for their groundbreaking work on complex physical systems like Earth's changing climate. The Nobel Committee awards the prize based on the scientists' research into disorder and fluctuation, which helps researchers predict long-term events despite short-term chaos.
Manabe and Hasselmann share one half of the prize for physically modeling the climate and reliably predicting global warming. Manabe demonstrates in the 1960s how increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere raises temperatures, laying the foundation for modern climate models. Hasselmann later creates a model that links chaotic, changeable weather to reliable long-term climate patterns.
Parisi receives the other half of the prize for discovering hidden patterns in disordered complex materials, a finding that applies to atomic and planetary scales alike. His discoveries make it possible to understand complex phenomena across various fields, including physics, biology, and neuroscience.