2021 Nobel Prize in Physics Rewards Climate Modeling and Complex Systems
The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics honors three scientists for groundbreaking work in understanding complex systems, specifically focusing on Earth's climate and disordered materials. Their research provides the foundational models that prove human activity causes global warming.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists for their groundbreaking contributions to understanding complex physical systems. Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann share one half of the prize for their physical modeling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability, and reliably predicting global warming. Giorgio Parisi receives the other half for his discovery of the interplay between disorder and fluctuations in physical systems across atomic to planetary scales.
Syukuro Manabe lays the foundation for modern climate models by demonstrating in the 1960s how increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere lead to higher surface temperatures on Earth. He leads the development of physical models that explore the interaction between radiation balance and the vertical transport of air masses. Later, Klaus Hasselmann creates a model that links chaotic, changeable weather to long-term climate, answering the question of why climate models remain reliable despite short-term weather unpredictability.
Hasselmann also develops methods to identify specific fingerprints that both natural phenomena and human activities imprint on the climate, providing tools to prove that increased atmospheric temperatures stem from human carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, Giorgio Parisi earns recognition for his revolutionary contributions to the theory of disordered materials and random processes. Together, these laureates establish new methods for describing chaotic systems and predicting their long-term behavior.