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Since its creation in 1946, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has supported the early-career research of more than 60 Nobel laureates.
ONR, which is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary, is proud to add another name to that prestigious list—Dr. Klaus Hasselmann of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, who recently won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, Hasselmann won for developing statistical models linking weather and climate—and demonstrating that increased atmospheric temperatures can be linked to human carbon dioxide emissions.
Although ONR didn’t directly sponsor Hasselmann’s Nobel Prize-winning research, which occurred in the 1970s, the command did support other work that helped him develop the data-gathering and modeling techniques he used in his climate studies.
“The Office of Naval Research congratulates Dr. Hasselmann and celebrates his outstanding achievement,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Lorin C. Selby. “This accomplishment illustrates how ONR basic research sponsorship can enable discoveries and breakthroughs benefiting the Department of the Navy and society as a whole.”
“ONR’s impact on ocean research can’t be overstated,” said Hasselmann, an oceanographer and climate scientist. “They were always very generous with me, allowing me to take data and other information gathered in my ocean wave research and apply it to my climate-related work. I can honestly say ONR played a pivotal role in my research.”
Hasselmann’s prize-winning research helped raise awareness of human-caused climate change in several ways. He first created models showing how short-term weather disturbances, such as precipitation, could be integrated into larger, more stable atmospheric and ocean-circulation patterns to produce changes in climate.
In other words, he demonstrated how weather that changes rapidly and chaotically can be incorporated into models framing long-term climate shifts. This helps explains why climate models usually deliver reliable predictions despite short-term weather fluctuations.
These statistical models prompted Hasselmann to consider how warming signals generated by human activities—such as greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on temperature—could be separated from the background noise of natural climate variability. Hasselmann developed complex statistical techniques enabling scientists to identify the presence and strength of such warming signals.
Hasselmann’s ONR-sponsored work involved studying how ocean waves develop and propagate, and how to incorporate that information into an ocean wave-forecasting model currently used in forecasting centers worldwide. Being able to predict ocean conditions is vital to the U.S. Navy’s global operations and the safety of ships at sea. Of particular concern to naval operations are waves, tides and currents.
Hasselmann’s relationship with ONR goes back to the 1960s. For example, in 1963 Hasselmann worked with legendary oceanographer Dr. Walter Munk—an ONR-funded performer from the 1940s until his death in 2019—on a study of how swells created by Antarctic storms travel more than 9,000 miles over the Pacific Ocean before hitting the Alaskan coast.
The study, known as “Waves Across the Pacific,” provided much-needed insight into creating prediction models dealing with waves, tides and currents—and their impact on weather and naval operations.
Hasselmann shared his Nobel Prize with Dr. Syukuro Manabe of Princeton University and Dr. Giorgio Parisi of the Sapienza University of Rome. Manabe and Parisi were not involved with Hasselmann’s research.
Learn more about Hasselmann's win at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/press-release/.
For a list of Nobel laureates supported by ONR, visit https://www.onr.navy.mil/About-ONR/History/Nobels.
Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.
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