Status: 05.10.2021 12:47 p.m.
For the second time in a row, a German is being honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics. Klaus Hasselmann shares the award with the American Manabe and the Italian Parisi for research on the earth’s climate and complex systems.
Half of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics goes to the German Klaus Hasselmann and the Japanese-born American Syukuro Manabe, and the other half to the Italian Giorgio Parisi. They are being recognized for their “groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems”, as announced by the Nobel Committee in Stockholm.
The importance of Hasselmann and Manabe’s research for the physical modeling of the earth’s climate was highlighted. They would have laid the basis for knowledge about the earth’s climate and human influence. Parisi’s research deals with the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from the atomic to the planetary level.
Manabe and Hasselmann were honored together, the other half of the award goes to Parisi.
Image: nobelprize.org
Professor in Hamburg
Hasselmann is one of the leading German climate researchers and was initially professor and later director of the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of Hamburg. After several stays abroad, he took over the management of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg from 1975 to November 1999 and was the first scientific director at the German Climate Computing Center in Hamburg from 1988 to 1999.
The 89-year-old dealt early on with man-made climate change and the greenhouse effect. In an interview from 1988 he said: “In 30 to 100 years, depending on how much fossil fuel we consume, we will face a very significant climate change. Climatic zones will shift, precipitation will be distributed differently. Then we will no longer talk about random results One should be aware that we are entering a situation where there is no turning back. Above all, we must try to use oil and coal sparingly, because carbon dioxide is largely to blame for the greenhouse effect. “
Parisi also considers the fight against the climate crisis a few weeks before the world climate conference COP26 to be extremely urgent. “It is clear that we have to act very quickly for future generations,” said the Italian shortly after receiving the award. It is very urgent that clear and very powerful decisions are made at the Glasgow conference.
Almost one million euros in prize money
The award is endowed with ten million crowns (around 985,000 euros) and is given for groundbreaking research and not for a lifetime achievement. It can be distributed among up to three people. Posthumous appreciation is not permitted. The prizes will be presented on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of the prize donor Alfred Nobel.
Last year the German astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel, the Briton Roger Penrose and the American Andrea Ghez were honored with the award for research on black holes and super massive compact objects. Yesterday the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to the US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their basic research on the perception of heat and pressure in the human body.
Chemistry, Literature and Peace Awards will follow
The decision on the award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry is expected on Wednesday, the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature is due on Thursday and on Friday it will be announced who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize for Economics, which is not strictly speaking a Nobel Prize, will be announced next Monday.