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Can anyone with more insight into the three researchers explain if this is a political statement or if their work really represents the best physics research? I
by doctoboggan 5y ago
Can anyone with more insight into the three researchers explain if this is a political statement or if their work really represents the best physics research? I am genuinely asking as I don't know much about their research.
- Throwaway197401 5y agoLooks like this part is political: “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming”" And this part is actual science: “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales”
- baq 5y agonope. before you ask me for sources, you haven't provided any, and you're quoting from a release with sources.
- Throwaway197401 5y agoThe source is the reason given. Modelling is NOT physics, it's not even science its statistics and does not actually produce the result that are claimed. There is a reason why the IPCC comes out with a range and not a specific number. They haven't found the right initial conditions or they would only use his to move forward. In fact if that had really been the case he should have been the only person who got the prize as that would have been an amazing achievement. This is just "sciencewashing" speculative modelling based on models about the climate that can't be proven to be correct in the future. (Hence the reason they are not going to stop modelling different initial conditions. So yes it's political nothing else. Politics not software is eating the world.
- eganist 5y ago> Looks like this part is political: “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” All this is saying is that the predictive models they devised were proven correct given climate behavior today, e.g rise of temperatures and a general uptrend in severe weather activity that followed.
- fighterpilot 5y agoHe predicted 0.57C of warming by the year 2000, and we saw 0.54C of warming. So accurate at least according to that. https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1445359093905084417 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1445359093905084417
- Throwaway197401 5y agoWhich shouldn't be given a nobel price unless they can explain exactly why which they can't just like we can't really explain why the temperature didn't increase for a period after 2nd world war without getting into speculation. It's bogus and as far some anything related to scientific standards as we can come.
- sshb 5y agoHere is a nice summary: https://twitter.com/thePiggsBoson/status/1445334496857841668 https://twitter.com/thePiggsBoson/status/1445334496857841668
- smarx007 5y agoRather than reading what tech/science writers can summarize on a lap (remember, they only learned the laureates' names a hour ago or so), I prefer to simply head over to YouTube and look for a lecture given by a laureate themselves. Most likely, Nobel is not their first prize and they have given a lecture summarizing their lifetime contributions before. Plus, it's always more pleasure to listen to nice people than reading Twitter :)
- Majestic121 5y agoYou can also find a nice PDF summary of their contribution on the Nobel Prize website itself, including a popular version : https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-physicsprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-physicspr...
- mygoodaccount 5y agoHigh profile prizes will always be political. That said, Syukuro Manabe built the foundation for a lot of modern day computer-based climate simulation. I can't speak for the others but I'd say that's Nobel worthy.
- paganel 5y ago> computer-based climate simulation I'm no scientist by any stretch of the imagination, the last time when I read something related to higher physics was ~20 years ago, in college, but I have to ask how is that topic related to modern physics. You're correct, it sounds like like a worthy Nobel for an Earth Sciences Nobel, or a Meteorology one (to be more direct), if those two things existed (maybe they should), but, again, don't know how meteorology (what computer-based climate simulation basically is) is the same thing as higher physics.
- maep 5y agoMeteorology is a sub-branch of physics.
- evanb 5y agoAs a physicist, I try to avoid the snobbery of limiting myself to "higher physics". A wide variety of physical systems are interesting, not just fundamental particle physics. Physics contains multitudes; graphene, giant magnetoresistence, fiber optics, and systems more complex.
- paganel 5y agoBut then again physics risks following the (wrong) road taken by economics a while ago, when it decided that almost all modern human-activity can be in fact studied through the economics lens.
- jean_tta 5y agoSurely studying the climate, i.e. a physical system, is completely in the realm of physics. Certainly, it is closer to whatever definition of physics you may have, than education or kidney donation (to take two examples) are to economics.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nabla9 5y agoHasselmann deserved it. Hasselmann model is stochastic climate model that explains red noise. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976.tb00696.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976... I don't know much about Manabes work but he is a pioneer in climate modelling. ps. Climate science is political only because those who don't believe in science politicize it.
- toolz 5y agoThe fact people think anyone should believe in science speaks to how political many scientific subjects have become so political. Imagine if scientists just "believed" science and never tried to reproduce. Belief is an awfully terrible trait to have in science.
- he0001 5y agoIsn’t that the problem? Because for most people, believing in it is the only option? They don’t have the tools or the ability to either refute nor confirm it.
- butokai 5y agoIsn't trying to reproduce a part of believing science? It seems that you're loving less than half of it otherwise
- toolz 5y agoNo, verification is not belief. You can believe in the methodologies I suppose, but that is not what is being said when people say "believe in science". They are saying "believe in the findings from people you haven't met who have credentials", which is nothing more than a nonsense appeal to authority. If a subject is important to someone, they should try their best to understand the research and to more fully understand a claim, one would do well to research with a heavy dose of skepticism in everything, especially things that affirm their own bias.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dna_polymerase 5y agoTaking a look at Syukuro Manabe on Google scholar, one will find that his most cited work is decades old. They could have given him the prize years ago or years from now. Climate change being the biggest topic currently certainly was a contributing factor to the decision.
- eganist 5y agoManabe's work was predictive. It's only in recent years when we've started seeing those predictions come true. Less "politics" and more "hey his models were right."
- _fizz_buzz_ 5y agoThat is often the case with the Nobel prize though. Higg's most cited paper was also many decades old before he got the Nobel prize.
- fenomas 5y agoThat's how the scientific Nobel prizes work. The average delay between discovery and award for recent Physics prizes is over 25 years, and gaps of 40+ years are not uncommon.
- photochemsyn 5y agoThe point your comment makes is one I imagine you have not grasped - the basic science of climate and CO2 was figured out by the late 1970s. Everything else since has been fine-tuning. For example, if you go back to the early 1950s this was not well known, and you had theories about how variations in the tides controlled climate and so on. P.S. Exxon scientists knew in 1978 that the science was accurate, and yet their executives spent millions of dollars for decades lying about it - and are still at it.
- stathibus 5y agoIt is obvious that the committee decided they wanted the prize to be about climate change this year before the selection process began, or it never would have shaken out this way.
- gandalfgreybeer 5y agoHow is it obvious?
- SiempreViernes 5y agoI guess first stathibus defined that anything that indicates the reality of climate change is part of one big conspiracy, and then "obviously" this event is part of that?
- stathibus 5y agoTell me you're way out of your depth without telling me you're way out of your depth
- scythe 5y agoThe Nobel Prize does not — and cannot reasonably — highlight the "best" physics research, because it is not possible to directly say one discipline is superior or more important than another. Rather, the Nobel features different disciplines in different years. In this context, it's important to recall that the development of modern climate science is one of the most significant developments of 20th-century physics, and before this year, no Nobel Prize had been awarded for climate science. Similar prizes were awarded for the development of the integrated circuit and the light-emitting diode, and in these cases almost nobody finds it to be in the slightest untoward that the Prize is awarded in relation to the social impact of the work. (There are always a few crotchety purists, but more people pretend to be so when it suits them.) So yes, awarding the Nobel for climate science is a political decision. Not awarding the Nobel for climate science would also be a political decision. In this context, it appears that the recipients are two of the most influential early theorists of climate science, who did their work decades ago. The Nobel committee has no choice but to be politicized when science is politicized. They handled it admirably.
- mstade 5y agoIs it unreasonable to suggest that maybe it could be both a reflection of politics and world class scientific achievements? To suggest that the prize is given simply in order to make a political statement seems like an insult to both the academy and the laureates. Besides, wouldn't it be just as bad to avoid awarding a prize that is politically sensitive, even though the actual science may well be prize worthy? It's fine to not consider a laureate a worthy winner, for sure, but it's not like they gave the Nobel prize in physics to Greta Thunberg..
- whatshisface 5y agoIt's a defensible suspicion given the other prize that shares the name "Nobel."
- pyb 5y agoI don't know the other two, but Parisi is definitely a star in his field.
- bluescarni 5y agoThe fact that you think that climate change is a "political" topic speaks volume about the success of the right wing propaganda machine.