CLIMATE SCIENCE PIONEER: Princeton University Senior Meteorologist Syukuro “Suki” Manabe was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His work in physically modeling Earth’s climate and predicting global warming provided a foundation for the future of climate science. (Photo by Princeton University, Office of Communications, Denise Applewhite, 2021)

By Donald Gilpin

Princeton University meteorologist Syukuro ”Suki” Manabe has been awarded a share of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work in modeling global climate change and climate variations.

Through his work over the past 60 years he has sounded a warning about global warming and “demonstrated how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to increased temperatures at the surface of the Earth,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which announced the award on Tuesday.

“When I got the phone call this morning, I was so surprised,” said Manabe, as quoted in a Princeton University press release. “Usually the Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to physicists making a fundamental contribution in physics. Yes, my work is based on physics, but it’s applied physics, geophysics. This is the first time the Nobel Prize has been awarded for the kind of work I have done: the study of climate change.”

Senior meteorologist in Princeton University’s Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Manabe, 90, shares the $1.14 M (10 million Swedish kronor) prize with Klaus Hasselmann of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, and Giorgio Parisi of the Sapienza University of Rome, with the work of all three contributing to understanding of climate change and how it is affected by human behavior.

The Academy’s announcement cited the three scientists’ “groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems,” conferring one-half of the prize on Manabe and Hasselmann “for the physical modeling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming,” and the other half to Parisi “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.”

The committee noted that Manabe’s work laid the foundation for the development of current climate models. “In the 1960s, he led the development of physical models of the Earth’s climate and was the first person to explore the interaction between the radiation balance and the vertical transport of air masses,” the committee said.

The work of Manabe, Hasselmann, and Parisi has become especially important recently as the outlook for climate change has become increasingly dire. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report in August showing that global warming is bound to intensify, and a September report from the UN warned that the temperature rise will bring more extreme wildfires, droughts, and floods.

“The IPCC report builds directly on the models pioneered by Dr. Manabe,” the New York Times wrote on Tuesday, going on to quote Ko Barrett, senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who said, “The climate scientists of today stand on the shoulders of these giants, who laid the foundations for our understanding of the climate system.”

Princeton University Geosciences Professor Gabriel Vecchi noted that “The whole field of climate modeling originates with Suki. The idea that you can take something so complex as the climate system and code the equations that govern it and put them in a computer and use that to simulate the climate system started with him.”

Vecchi went on to state that in creating the first simulations of how the climate system responds to increasing greenhouse gases, Manabe “not only illustrated some of the potential consequences of global warming, but gave us a roadmap of how to do climate science.”

Manabe was one of the founding scientists of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFLD), a national climate research laboratory that is run jointly by Princeton University and NOAA.

In 1958 Manabe came from Japan to the National Weather Service (NOAA’s predecessor) using physics to model weather systems. He came to Princeton University in 1963 to help lead GFDL and in 1968 became a member of the Princeton University faculty.

Tuesday afternoon, as he walked onto the stage for a news conference in Richardson Auditorium, Manabe received a prolonged standing ovation from the gathering of about 150. His colleagues praised him for his “groundbreaking” and “world-changing” work. Princeton University Provost Deborah Prentice described him as “a pioneer in his field and a pioneer for humanity.” Princeton University Geosciences Professor Stephan Fueglistaler added, “It’s no exaggeration to call Dr. Manabe a giant.”

In his brief remarks, Manabe said how surprised and honored he felt at being chosen by the Nobel committee. He thanked GFDL, NOAA, and Princeton University, concluding, “I have really had a great time.”