Three scientists win Nobel for climate modeling work

A trio of scientists from Japan, Italy and Germany won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their climate modeling work.

Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi were awarded “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems,” Göran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said in Stockholm, The Washington Post reported.

Manabe and Hasselmann, who worked together, won the prestigious prize for their contributions in “the physical modeling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming,” according to The Associated Press.

Parisi, a theoretical physicist, won the second half of the prize for his work in explaining disorder in physical systems ranging from atoms to planets. 

The prize thus goes to two different fields of study that work to explain disorder in a predictable way, Nobel committee for physics chair Thors Hans Hansson said.

The “complex systems” all three scientists work with included the climate. 

Hasselmann said in an interview with the AP he “would rather have no global warming and no Nobel prize.”

Manabe and Hasselmann “laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how human actions influence it,” according to the judges for the prize. 

Parisi has said his work can be used to understand environmental variation, according to the Post. 

“It’s clear that for the future generation we have to act now, in a very fast way,” he said at the Nobel Conference.