Klaus Hasselmann, founding Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, receives the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 together with Syukuro Manabe (USA) and Giorgio Parisi (Italy)
Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro Manabe are honoured for their fundamental contributions to climate research, Giogio Parisi for his research on disordered materials and random processes. Klaus Hasselmann developed a model of how weather and climate are connected, i.e. how short-term phenomena such as precipitation are related to long-term developments such as ocean currents. He thus provided evidence why climate models can deliver reliable predictions despite short-term weather fluctuations. In this way, he proved the connection between the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and global warming.
Klaus Hasselmann
© Hans Luthardt
Klaus Hasselmann was Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg from 1975 to November 1999 and Scientific Director at the German Climate Computing Centre from 1988 to 1999.
Last year, a Max Planck scientist was already honoured with the highest scientific award in physics. Reinhard Genzel, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, received the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 together with Roger Penrose and Andrea Ghez. The Royal Swedish Academy honoured the scientists for their research on black holes.
