Syukuro “Suki” Manabe (1931–)

Basic Facts

Full name: Syukuro Manabe (真鍋淑郎, Manabe Shukuro)
Born: 21 September 1931, Shinritsu Village, Uma District, Ehime Prefecture, Japan
Nationality: Japanese-American (became U.S. citizen)
Status: Living (age 94)

Family Background

Born into a medical family – both his grandfather and father were physicians who operated the village’s only clinic. He was expected to follow the family tradition but chose a different path, recalling that “whenever there’s an emergency, the blood rushes to my head” and confessing he had “a horrible memory” and physical clumsiness that made him unsuitable for medicine.

Education

Year	Degree / Institution
1953	B.A. in Meteorology, University of Tokyo
1955	M.A., University of Tokyo
1958	D.Sc. in Meteorology, University of Tokyo

Studied under Shigekata Shono’s research group.

Career

1958–1997: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), first in Washington D.C., then Princeton, NJ. Recruited by Joseph Smagorinsky in 1959.
1963: Moved from Washington D.C. to Princeton to help establish GFDL at its new location.
1997–2001: Director, Global Warming Research Division, Frontier Research System for Global Change, Japan.
2002–present: Senior Meteorologist, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University.
2007–2014: Specially invited professor, Nagoya University.

Major Scientific Contributions

1965 – General Circulation Model with Hydrologic Cycle

With Smagorinsky and Strickler, published foundational work simulating climatology that included a complete hydrologic cycle.

1967 – CO2 and Climate (with Wetherald)

Manabe and Richard Wetherald developed a one-dimensional radiative-convective model demonstrating that increased atmospheric CO2 causes surface temperature rises in the troposphere while cooling the stratosphere. This was the first credible quantification of the greenhouse effect using computational models. Published as “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity” in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

1969 – First Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Model (with Bryan)

With Kirk Bryan, created the first general circulation model coupling oceanic and atmospheric processes. This was a landmark in climate science, enabling study of ocean-atmosphere interactions and their role in climate.

1975 – CO2 Doubling Study

Manabe and Wetherald used a comprehensive GCM to examine what would happen if atmospheric CO2 doubled from 300 to 600 ppm. They predicted an average tropospheric temperature increase of 2.3 to 2.93 degrees C – a result that has held up remarkably well.

1979 – Charney Report

Manabe’s model results were among those evaluated by Jule Charney’s Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate. The report concluded that Manabe’s and Hansen’s model projections were consistent with the physical processes governing the climate system. The estimated equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C (plus/minus 1.5 degrees C) has remained largely unchallenged for over four decades.

2021 Nobel Prize in Physics

On 5 October 2021, Manabe was awarded one half of the Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Klaus Hasselmann), “for the physical modeling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.” The other half went to Giorgio Parisi for work on disordered systems.

When told about the prize, Manabe responded:

“I was really happy and surprised.”
“I never dreamed I would win the Nobel physics prize. If you look at the list of past winners, they are amazing people who have done marvelous work. In contrast, what I have been doing looks trivial to me.”
After wondering whether his work deserved comparison with previous laureates, he considered that climate change is now a major crisis: “For that reason, I thought, maybe it’s ok!” – said with a laugh.
“It is great fun to use a model to study how climate change over the last 400 million years has evolved.” (This became the “great fun” headline of Princeton’s press release.)

He delivered his Nobel lecture, “Physical Modeling of Earth’s Climate,” on 8 December 2021 in Stockholm, acknowledging Joseph Smagorinsky as the GFDL director who made his career possible. Published in Reviews of Modern Physics (2023). Full PDF: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/11/manabe-lecture.pdf

Recruitment to GFDL

Smagorinsky read one of Manabe’s papers and invited him to the United States. Manabe was drawn by:

Computing power: Japan had negligible computing resources; in America he had free use of a supercomputer.
Salary: His American salary was reportedly 25 times what he had earned in Japan.
Research freedom: Smagorinsky had assembled a young international team with an ambitious plan.
Manabe recalled: “Smagorinsky’s and my role were complementary. He had the ambitious plan, and my job was to make it work. The computer was so feeble at the time… if we put everything into the model at once, the computer couldn’t handle it.”

Personality and Working Style

Described himself as a child who preferred “to gaze at the sky and get lost in thoughts” rather than pursue practical medical work. In elementary school he “usually stayed at home, laid down and thought about something endlessly.”
Said that “Japanese people don’t want to say no” but emphasized that “in science this is not a very good thing, you have to say very clearly you disagree with each other.”
On Japanese communication: “In Japan, if you ask a question you get ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ However, when the Japanese say ‘yes’ it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘yes.’ It could mean ‘no.’”
On why he didn’t return permanently: “I don’t want to go back to Japan, because I am not able to live harmoniously.”
On American freedom: “In America, I can do whatever I want. I don’t care how other people feel.”
“Curiosity is the thing which drives all my research activity.”
“I did these experiments out of pure scientific curiosity. I never realized that it would become a problem of such wide-ranging concern for all of human society.”
“I spent a major fraction of my life thinking about the same thing. I really didn’t do much else. Now at 90, I finally decided to stop doing active research.”
Urged students to “follow their curiosity and their joy, rather than trying to predict what research may prove impactful in future decades.”

Awards and Honors

Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal (1992)
Blue Planet Prize (1992) – first recipient
Roger Revelle Medal (1993)
Asahi Prize (1995)
Volvo Environment Prize (1997)
William Bowie Medal (2010)
Franklin Institute Award (2015)
Crafoord Prize in Geosciences (2018, shared with Susan Solomon)
Nobel Prize in Physics (2021)
Order of Culture, Japan (2021)
Great Immigrants Award, Carnegie Corporation of New York (2022)

Connections to Other Scientists

Joseph Smagorinsky: Director who recruited Manabe to GFDL in 1959 and supported his research throughout.
Richard Wetherald: Long-time collaborator on radiative-convective models and CO2 studies (1967, 1975).
Kirk Bryan: Co-developed the first coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM (1969).
Klaus Hasselmann: Shared the 2021 Nobel Prize.
Ronald Stouffer: Collaborator on climate variability research.
Isaac Held, Kenneth Bowman, Alex Hall: Doctoral students.
Jule Charney: Evaluated Manabe’s models for the 1979 Charney Report.

Professional Memberships

United States National Academy of Sciences
Academia Europaea
Royal Society of Canada
Japan Academy (foreign member)

Key Publications

Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. (1967). “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 24(3), 241–259.
Manabe, S. & Bryan, K. (1969). “Climate Calculations with a Combined Ocean-Atmosphere Model.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 26(4), 786–789.
Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. (1975). “The Effects of Doubling the CO2 Concentration on the Climate of a General Circulation Model.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 32(1), 3–15.

Sources

Accessed: 2026-04-02

Michał Brennek