Three elderly scientists who spent decades modeling climate change, and then tried to warn the world of what’s coming, were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for physics.
Syukuro Manabe, 90, and Klaus Hasselmann, 89, “carried out pioneering work in the1960s and 1970s that sounded an early alarm on human-made climate change,” CNN said (story here). Manabe connected CO2 with temperature change, while Hasselmann “created a model that links together weather and climate.” Giorgi Parisi, 73, discovered “the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems.” (For more about why they won, read this article.)
Michael Moloney of the American Institute of Physics said the awards send a message that Earth science models on which climate change predictions are based represent “sound, solid science.” That, of course, is an implied rebuke of climate change deniers, who have tended to be fossil fuel companies, rightwing politicians, and political conservatives. Pretty clearly, they’ve been wrong, or lying.
The Earth’s average temperature is changing faster than natural cycles can explain, the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been measured, and the physical link been atmospheric CO2 and rising temperature is scientifically established. Some people don’t like to admit that fossil fuels are creating havoc with our habitat, but denying it won’t make it go away. The science is sound, the conclusions beyond dispute, and we can’t afford to listen to people who are wrong about something so important.
