Climate Change & the Ozone Hole
Laureates: Syukuro Manabe & Susan Solomon
About This Prize
The 2018 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences was awarded jointly to Syukuro Manabe (Princeton University) and Susan Solomon (MIT). Manabe was recognized for his groundbreaking work developing the first realistic climate models that demonstrated the role of greenhouse gases in global warming. Solomon was honored for her definitive identification of the chemical mechanisms responsible for the Antarctic ozone hole, research that led directly to the Montreal Protocol — one of the most successful international environmental agreements in history. Manabe would later also receive the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for the same work.
★ Laureate Lectures
Syukuro Manabe
Princeton University, USA
“Role of Greenhouse Gas in Climate Change”
Manabe describes the development of coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models and their predictions for CO₂-driven warming, including changes to the hydrological cycle, polar amplification, and sea level rise.
Susan Solomon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
“Meeting The Challenges of the Antarctic Ozone Hole: A Global Science and Policy Success Story”
Solomon recounts her expedition to Antarctica and the discovery that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on polar stratospheric cloud particles catalyze ozone destruction, leading to the Montreal Protocol and ongoing ozone recovery.
Key Concepts
- • General Circulation Models (GCMs): Numerical models coupling atmosphere, ocean, and land surface to simulate climate response to CO₂ forcing
- • Greenhouse Effect: Absorption and re-emission of infrared radiation by atmospheric gases (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O), warming Earth’s surface
- • Polar Stratospheric Clouds: Ice and nitric acid clouds that form in the frigid Antarctic stratosphere, providing surfaces for heterogeneous chlorine chemistry
- • Ozone Depletion: Destruction of stratospheric O₃ by catalytic cycles involving chlorine and bromine released from CFCs and halons
- • Montreal Protocol: The 1987 international treaty phasing out ozone-depleting substances, leading to measurable stratospheric ozone recovery