Nobel Prize in Physics rewards work on complex systems, such as climate – FOX23 News

STOCKHOLM – (AP) – Three scientists on Tuesday won the Nobel Prize in Physics for work that brought order to apparent disorder, helping to explain and predict the complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of the climate change.

Syukuro Manabe from Japan and Klaus Hasselmann from Germany were cited for their work on “physical modeling of the Earth’s climate, quantification of variability and reliable prediction of global warming”.

The second half of the prize was awarded to Giorgio Parisi from Italy for “the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic scale to planetary scale”.

All three work on so-called “complex systems”, of which climate is just one example.

The judges said Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, “laid the foundation for our knowledge of Earth’s climate and how human actions influence it.

Beginning in the 1960s, Manabe demonstrated how increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase global surface temperatures, thus laying the foundation 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.

Parisi “built a deep physical and mathematical model” that has enabled us to understand complex systems in fields as diverse as mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning.

His work originally focused on what is known as spin glass, a type of metal alloy in which atoms are arranged in a way that changes the magnetic properties of the material in seemingly random ways, which baffled scholars. scientists. Parisi, 73, was able to uncover hidden patterns behind this behavior, theories that could be applied to other areas of research as well.

In their work, physicists used complex mathematics to explain and predict what appeared to be chaotic forces of nature in computer simulations, called modeling. This modeling has given scientists such a solid understanding of these forces that they can accurately predict the weather one week per week and warn of the climate decades in advance.

Some non-scientists have attacked and ridiculed modeling, but it has been key to how the world tackles one of its biggest problems – climate change.

“Physically-based climate models have predicted the magnitude and rate of global warming, including some of the consequences such as rising seas, increasing extreme precipitation, and stronger hurricanes, decades before they did. “They cannot be observed. Klaus Hasselmann and Suki Manabe were pioneers in this field and personal role models for me,” said German climatologist and modeler Stefan Rahmstorf.

“We are now seeing how their first predictions come true one after the other,” said Rahmstorf.

When climatologists and former US Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, some non-scientists who deny global warming rejected it as a political prize. Perhaps anticipating the controversy, officials who spoke at the announcement stressed that Tuesday’s was a science award.

“It’s a physics prize. What we’re saying is that climate modeling is firmly based on physical theory and well-known physics, ”Swedish physicist Thors Hans Hansson said at the announcement.

While Parisi’s work did not focus on the climate, he spoke of the pressing issues facing Earth after the announcement.

“It is very urgent that we take very strong decisions and move forward at a very sustained pace” in the fight against global warming, he said. “It is clear to future generations that we must act now.

When asked if he expected to get the prize, Parisi said: “I knew there was a sizable possibility.”

The COVID-19 restrictions in Italy meant “we can’t throw a very big party,” he said. “I think we are going to do something but we are not really decided.”

It is common for several scientists working in related fields to share the prize.

The prestigious award is accompanied by a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (over $ 1.14 million). The prize money comes from a bequest left by the creator of the prize, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.

On Monday, the Nobel Committee awarded the price of physiology or medicine to the Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries on how the human body perceives temperature and touch it.

Over the next few days, prizes will also be awarded for outstanding work in the fields of chemistry, literature, peace and economics.

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Jordans reported from Berlin. AP science writer Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland, contributed to this report.

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Read more articles on past and present Nobel Prizes by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes

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