Unlocking Climate Secrets: The Power of Early Models

Climate models may seem like a complex web of calculations, but they’re crucial for understanding our planet's future. As these models simulate the chaotic interactions within Earth's atmosphere and oceans using some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, they’ve faced skepticism regarding their accuracy. Yet, the history of climate science reveals an impressive track record.

Starting in the 1960s, a modest government lab in Princeton, New Jersey—known as the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory—brought forth revolutionary climate predictions. Leading the charge was Syukuro Manabe, whose pioneering work not only earned him the Nobel Prize in 2021 but also set the stage for how we understand climate change today.

Forecast #1: The CO2 Connection