The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was awarded to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi for having discovered new methods for describing complex systems and predicting their long-term behavior, including the physics of the Earth’s climate and how it has changed due to the effects of human industrialization.
There half of the 10 million Swedish kronor (1.15 million dollars) for having won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 is divided between Manabe and Hasselmann.
Manabe and his team have shown that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to an increase in average temperatures around the Earth’s surface, a situation that, among other things, we are experiencing every day, while Hasselmann has created models that linked time and climate.
Both scientists and the work of their teams are at the heart of our climate models today, demonstrating how influential they have been.
The other half of the prize nobel for physics 2021 goes to Giorgio Parisi. His work is also on complex systems but not on a terrestrial scale, rather within disordered complex materials such as rotating glass.
He and his team have uncovered hidden patterns, creating a physical and mathematical model that describes such a system, the applications of which are used to understand things like sand motion, but also neuroscience and many technological applications.
Details on this Nobel Prize in Physics 2021
“The findings recognized this year show that our knowledge of the climate rests on a solid scientific basis, based on rigorous analysis of observations. This year’s winners have all helped us gain a deeper insight into the properties and evolution of complex physical systems “
stated in a note Thors Hans Hansson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
The committee pointed out that physics is not just about the ordered and (now) easily predictable system of planets revolving around the Sun, there are in fact systems with a complexity that, when first identified, they felt that they would always defy the odds.
The work of these dedicated scientists and their many collaborators shows that it is possible to understand and model these systems.
Those models are now informing us of how the world around us is changing, and that is especially important now that, later this month, world leaders will meet in Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference, where crucial decisions will be made on how to tackle the climate crisis.
“It is very urgent that we make very strong decisions and move at a very strong pace. Because we are in a situation where we may have negative or positive feedback which could accelerate the temperature rise. It is clear that for future generations we must act “
Professor Parisi, who works at the University of Rome La Sapienza, said during the press conference.
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