Japanese-born Syukuro Manabe among three Nobel Prize winners in physics

Japanese-American scientist Syukuro Manabe, German Klaus Hasselmann and Italian Giorgio Parisi on Tuesday won the Nobel Prize in Physics for climate models and understanding of physical systems.

The Nobel committee said it was sending a message with the announcement of its prize just weeks before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, as the rate of global warming sounded alarm bells around the world.

“World leaders who haven’t yet got the message, I’m not sure they’ll get it because we’re saying it,” said Thor Hans Hansson, chairman of the Nobel Committee in Physics. “But … what we’re saying is that climate modeling is solidly based on physical theory.”

Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, will share half the price of 10 million crowns ($ 1.1 million) for their climate model research.

Parisi, 73, won the other half for her work on the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems.

“Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation for our knowledge of Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it,” said the Nobel committee.

“Giorgio Parisi is recognized for his revolutionary contributions to the theory of disordered materials and random processes,” he added.

Manabe, a meteorologist at Princeton University, was born in 1931 in Ehime Prefecture and then studied at the University of Tokyo before moving to the United States, where he is a national.

Hasselmann is a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, while Parisi, who also won the prestigious Wolf Prize in February, is a professor at Sapienza University in Rome.

Working in the 1960s, Manabe showed how the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere correspond to the increase in Earth’s surface temperatures. Importantly, he recognized the role of water vapor in trapping heat, which is much more than carbon dioxide alone.

Manabe’s founding models, made at a time when computing power was only a fraction of what they are today, remain a model for the field.

But at the time, he had no idea of ​​the critical importance of his work, telling reporters at a press conference in Princeton, New Jersey, that he had conducted his research “because I really enjoyed myself a lot “.

Interviewed by American and Japanese reporters at his home on Tuesday, Manabe said he believed his award reflected the Academy’s recognition of climate change, which he said will continue to intensify with more droughts, rains torrential waves, the warming of emerged lands and the melting of polar ice.

“Already, as you know, many phenomena show that climate change is happening,” he said in Japanese. “And I think that’s why the theme of climate change was selected for the award this time.”

When asked in English how he would tackle climate change skeptics, he smiled and replied, “This problem is about a million times more difficult than understanding climate change. It’s very mysterious to me.

Hasselmann has been credited with discovering how climate models can remain reliable despite sometimes chaotic variations in weather patterns.

The committee praised his identification of climate “fingerprints” caused by natural and human activities and how climate change can be attributed only to human-made emissions.

“In 30 to 100 years, depending on how much fossil fuels we consume, we will be facing very significant climate change,” Hasselmann said in an interview in 1988, according to a statement from the Max Planck Society in Germany.

Hasselmann received a standing ovation from his co-workers when the news broke.

“It was a little strange to me, and it took a little longer for the public to understand (my research),” he said. “Personally, I am very grateful that the young people have tackled the problem. “

While scientists have warned of dire climate consequences for decades, there hasn’t been enough political progress on the transition from fossil fuels.

Asked about his take on the intersection of science and politics, Manabe said: “Trying to understand climate change isn’t too easy, but it’s much, much easier than what’s happening. in current policy. “

Parisi was honored for his work in the 1980s which was called by the Committee “among the most important contributions” to the theory of complex systems.

His work has helped physicists understand seemingly entirely random materials, with many applications including mathematics, biology, and machine learning.

Linking the work of Manabe and Hasselman to that of Parisi, the Nobel Foundation said this year’s prize “recognizes new methods for describing complex systems and predicting their long-term behavior.”

“A complex system of vital importance to humanity is the Earth’s climate,” the jury said.

“I think the prize is important not only for me but also for the other two because climate change is a huge threat to humanity and it is extremely important that governments act decisively as quickly as possible,” said Parisi during a press conference at the Lincean Academy. in Rome.

Tuesday’s prize was the first Nobel Prize in physics to honor work on climate, but the subject has already received Nobel recognition in other disciplines.

The UN IPCC, which received the Peace Prize with Former US Vice President Al Gore in 2007, welcomed the award and congratulated the winners in a statement.

“It is encouraging to see the Nobel Prize in Physics recognize the work of scientists who have contributed so much to our understanding of climate change,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He noted that Manabe and Hasselmann contributed to the IPCC assessment reports in the 1990s.

When Manabe heard that he had won the Nobel Prize in Physics, he looked at the luminaries who came before him and thought “My God, it is a big surprise that I received this prize”, did he declare.

But, after considering the current climate crisis and his contribution was a step towards better understanding, “So I thought, maybe it’s okay. “