University of Iowa alumnus and climate scientist James Hansen has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change for his contributions to climate science.
Hansen earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in physics from the UI and studied under the legendary UI space scientist James Van Allen. The BBVA Foundation jointly honored Hansen and Princeton University scientist Syukuro Manabe for constructing the first computational models with the power to simulate climate behavior. Decades ago, both men correctly predicted how much the Earth’s temperature would rise due to increasing atmospheric CO2. The scores of models currently in use to chart climate evolution are “heirs” to those first developed by Hansen and Manabe, according to the foundation.
Born and raised in Denison, Iowa, Hansen was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards seek to recognize and encourage world-class research and artistic creation, prizing contributions of broad impact for their originality and theoretical significance.