This year, the Nobel Prize in Physics for the 3rd year of Reiwa (2021) was awarded to Dr. Syukuro Manabe (90), a senior researcher at Princeton University in the United States. It was supposed to be held at a concert hall in Stockholm, Sweden.
However, considering the impact of the new coronavirus, the award ceremony will be held in the country where the award winners live for the second consecutive year.
Dr. Unro Manabe will be honored at the American Academy of Sciences in Washington on December 7th (6th local time), along with the winners of the American Chemistry and Economics Awards.
It was about 60 years ago that Dr. Syukuro Manabe quantitatively predicted that global warming would progress if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased.
Dr. Syukuro Manabe seeks the vertical temperature distribution of the atmosphere by setting the vertical lapse rate in the troposphere to 6.5 degrees per kilometer and giving the distribution of clouds, ozone, water vapor, and carbon dioxide.
And he succeeded in creating a distribution that closely resembles the real atmosphere, and based on this, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide lowers the temperature of the stratosphere and raises the temperature near the surface of the earth. It is calculated (Fig. 1).
It has been debated among scholars since the late 19th century that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect and affects the climate.
Dr. Manabe is not the first, but Dr. Manabe was the first to quantitatively study how much carbon dioxide increases and how much the temperature rises.
Kenji Miyazawa's fairy tale is one example that cannot be practically studied without quantitative research.
Kenji Miyazawa, a fairy tale writer, published "The Biography of Guscovdori" in the magazine "Children's Literature" published in April 1932, but when carbon dioxide increases, the temperature near the surface of the earth rises. That is the motif.
The story begins with Guskou Budori (Budori), who lived in Ihatov, struggling to enter the academic path, including the loss of his parents in a famine caused by cold weather.
And when Ihatov was hit by a serious cold damage, he sacrificed himself to artificially explode Karubonado volcano, releasing a large amount of carbon dioxide, and the greenhouse effect stopped the cold damage.
It seems that the background of the story was the appearance of a rural village in Tohoku suffering from cold damage and bad harvest, but it is not only scholars but also in the early Showa era that if carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, the area near the surface of the earth will become warmer. It was widely known.
However, the mechanism of the earth is complicated.
Like Kenji Miyazawa's fairy tale, carbon dioxide is released when a volcano erupts, but a large amount of fine particles (aerosol) such as volcanic ash are also released.
This aerosol has a sunshade effect that blocks sunlight and lowers the temperature.
Therefore, quantitative research is important because the results will differ depending on whether the amount of increase in temperature due to the increase in carbon dioxide or the amount of decrease in temperature due to the increase in aerosol is larger.
In the current discipline, when a volcano erupts, the amount of temperature decrease due to the increase in aerosol is larger than the amount of increase due to the increase in carbon dioxide, so it becomes cold when the volcano erupts.
In other words, Kenji Miyazawa's fairy tales, apart from their high reputation as fairy tales, break one premise.
When introducing Dr. Akuro Manabe, the phrase "the man who used the best computer in the world" is often used.
It must have been successful by mastering the world's top-performance supercomputers, but its performance is completely different from that of today's supercomputers.
Around 1967, when Dr. Akuro Manabe announced "Increase in carbon dioxide and increase in surface temperature", even the world's highest-performance supercomputer had a computing power of 10 megabytes per second (167). There were only about 1 million times).
The computing power was far inferior to the smartphones used by many people today.
Around 1990, when the IPCC's first evaluation report was created, where Dr. Manabe's research attracted the attention of many people, the performance of supercomputers increased 1000 times and the computing power became large. Is 10 giga times per second (Fig. 2).
When we say 1000 times the speed, the walking speed of 1 meter per second is equivalent to 1 km per second and 3600 km / h (about 3 times the speed of sound).
In other words, I think the correct answer is "the man who masters the best computer in the world" in the sense that he made the basis of research using a sonic supercomputer with a computer that has only walking speed.
After joining the Japan Meteorological Agency, I learned about Dr. Akuro Manabe's achievement of "global warming is promoted by carbon dioxide" and the atmospheric-ocean coupled model of thinking about the atmosphere and the ocean together to clarify it. Is the time when the first report, the first report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 1990, is being prepared.
The author was the youngest person in the Planning Division of the Japan Meteorological Agency, but a colleague and other top-level scientists in the world, such as Dr. Manabe, are working to rigorously verify the elucidation of the abnormal weather that is currently occurring. I made it.
Since 1990, Japanese manufacturers such as Fujitsu, NEC, and Hitachi have joined the competition for the top of the world.
The Earth Simulator, which was completed in Yokohama in 2002, had about five times the processing power of the world's top-level supercomputers centered on the United States, which had monopolized the top ranks so far.
The United States was shocked by this, and the New York Times described it as "the shock since the Soviet Union (now Russia) launched the first artificial satellite Sputnik of humankind in 1957." ..
The United States, which was thought to be overwhelmingly the top level in high-tech technology, is working on the "Overthrowing Earth Simulator" with government and government assets, and the "Earth Simulator Correspondence Conference" has been created by the Ministry of Energy.
However, Japan has entered a period of stagnation and has not only been overtaken by the United States, but also by China.
Japan returned to the top level in the world in 2012, when the "Kyo" was established in Kobe, but the top of the "Kyo" did not last long, and in 2012 (2012). In 2013, it was overtaken by the United States, and in 2013, it was overtaken by China.
However, "Tomitake", which was established in Kobe in 2020, is the number one in the world, and in November 2021, it is calculated three times as much as the second-placed American supercomputer. The speed, the calculation speed of 44 Kyo 2010 trillion times per second is recorded, and it keeps the top position.
The sea, which covers about 70% of the earth's surface, is thought to have a great influence on the global atmospheric circulation and climate formation as a source of heat and water vapor.
In addition, the sea is also greatly affected by the movement of the atmosphere, such as the movement of the sea surface.
As with the question, "Which of the chicken or the egg was born first?", The atmosphere affects the ocean, and the ocean also affects the atmosphere.
However, the atmospheric-ocean coupled model is a method that requires a large amount of calculation that cannot be sufficiently performed even with a state-of-the-art supercomputer.
When Dr. Akuro Manabe started his research in the United States, even the most advanced calculators in the United States lacked the ability.
Even if we combined the atmosphere and the ocean, Dr. Manabe had an excellent ability to narrow down the points and achieve results with a small amount of computational resources.
The table is an example of the atmospheric-ocean coupled model compiled by the Japan Meteorological Agency in 1989, but at this point there were only 21 major ones.
Of these, 1, 2, 8, 13, and 20 are Dr. Manabe's research.
For Dr. Akuro Manabe, who wanted to develop an atmospheric-ocean coupling model, I think the Earth Frontier System, which was linked with the Earth Simulator, was attractive.
For this reason, he came to Japan as the director of the "Global Warming Prediction Research System" and is conducting research in Japan.
The Earth Frontier System, which started in October 1997, is a joint project of the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and the Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC), two special corporations under the Science and Technology Agency, for a period of 20. The plan was to gather 100 researchers from Japan and overseas in the year (the first 10 years for the time being) and proceed with research focusing on changes in the global environment.
Area length at the start of the Earth Frontier System
(1) Climate Change Prediction Research Program: Toshio Yamagata (University of Tokyo, concurrent post)
(2) Water Cycle Prediction Research Program: Tetsuzo Yasunari (University of Tsukuba, concurrent post)
(3) Global Warming Prediction Research Program: Akuro Manabe (Full-time)
(4) Model integration (next-generation climate model research) program: Taro Matsuno (Earth Frontier Research System)
(5) Research program at the International Pacific Research Center: Toshio Yamagata (University of Tokyo, concurrent post)
(6) Research program at the International Arctic Research Center: Motomi Ikeda (Hokkaido University, concurrent post)
At that time, the author was a technical development coordinator in the Planning Division of the Japan Meteorological Agency, and had meetings with Taro Matsuno, Director of the Earth Change Research Institute, in Hamamatsu-cho, Tokyo.
I only greeted Dr. Manabe, but I had the impression that he was a legendary person above the clouds, but he was as active as a young researcher.
However, due to the delay in the development of the Earth Simulator, Dr. Akuro Manabe retired from the Director of the Global Warming Prediction Research Area in November 2001, before the full-scale operation, and returned to the United States. ..
Even if Japan became the best in the world in the Earth Simulator, it would not last long, and if the United States did its best, it might have been looking to overtake Japan soon.
It may be the result of always trying to find the highest level.
The Japan Meteorological Agency is also cooperating in the development of the Earth Simulator.
Developed the next-generation numerical weather prediction model of the Japan Meteorological Agency by changing the division of duties of the staff of the Numerical Weather Prediction Division who is familiar with the computer of the Japan Meteorological Agency and cooperating mainly with the staff living in Kanagawa Prefecture where the Earth Simulator is located, considering the convenience of transportation. doing.
I mentioned earlier that the basis of research to specifically calculate the amount of surface temperature rise due to the increase in carbon dioxide using a sonic supercomputer was made with a computer that has only a walking speed, but if you compare the current computer to 100,000 per second. The ability has increased to a point close to the speed of light, which is a kilometer.
Dr. Unro Manabe is "the man who masters the best computer in the world", and I think he is suitable for the Nobel Prize in Physics, in the sense that he created the basis of the atmospheric-ocean coupling model using a supercomputer of the speed of light with a computer of sound velocity. increase.
Source of Figure 1: Japan Meteorological Agency (1988), Extreme Weather Report 89.
Source of Figure 2: Created by the author based on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications website.
Source of the table: Created by the author based on "Japan Meteorological Agency (1990), Climate Change Due to Increase in Greenhouse Gases, Report of Greenhouse Effect Study Group, Climate Issues Council".
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