Physics Nobel Prize 2021

Physics Nobel Prize 2021

Part of: Prelims and GS III – Sci and Tech

Context U.S.-Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany, and Giorgio Parisi of Italy won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems.

Commendable work of the scientists

• Working in the 1960s, Dr. Manabe showed how levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere corresponded to increased earth surface temperatures. 
  • He was influential in developing the physical models of earth’s climate and worked on how exactly the heat energy received by earth from the sun radiates back into the atmosphere.
• Dr. Hasselmann was credited for working out how climate models can remain reliable despite sometimes chaotic variation in weather trends. 
  • The Committee praised his identification of climate “fingerprints” caused by both natural and human activities and how much climate change can be attributed solely to man-made emissions.
• Dr. Parisi was honoured for his work in the 1980s that was said by the committee to be “among the most important contributions” to the theory of complex systems. 
  • His work made it possible for physicists to understand apparently entirely random materials, with wide-ranging applications including mathematics, biology, and machine learning.