海角大神

The snow intrigued him. As a student, Tapio Schneider was a triathlete and competitive cross-country skier in the mountains of northern Germany.

鈥淚 was doing a lot of ski races and snow was becoming rarer and rarer, and appearing lighter and lighter. And I started to be interested in the question of why.鈥�

He was a physics student and a good programmer. Eventually, he says, 鈥淚 realized that the physics that interests me is the physics of everyday life: why the sky is blue and how the refrigerator works.鈥� The atmosphere, he recalls, 鈥渨as the set of phenomena that were right outside the window.鈥�

Dr. Schneider came to the United States on a graduate fellowship and stayed because, he confides a bit sheepishly, science 鈥渨as so much more fun鈥� here than in Europe.聽

鈥淭here鈥檚 just this can-do spirit. I think the U.S. is really unique in that regard. And that鈥檚 why a lot of us immigrants are here.鈥澛�

He dove into climate modeling at Princeton University, went to the California Institute of Technology, and in 2018 embarked with other scientists on a five-year, $25 million race to set aside the 30 or more existing climate models and build a new one from scratch. He leads the project. It is a bold idea. He decided on pursuing it after talking to a colleague who heard his ideas and said simply, 鈥淲ell, that鈥檚 exactly what we should be doing. We just need to do it.鈥澛�

From his house in South Pasadena, California, where he lives with his two children and wife 鈥� Chiara Daraio, an engineering professor at Caltech 鈥� Dr. Schneider shrugs off critics who are skeptical he can develop a model that gives the firm climate forecasts he envisions.

鈥淚 think scientifically there isn鈥檛 any issue that鈥檚 insurmountable,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he more important question to me is, how long does it take to get there?鈥�

Read about Dr. Schneider's work on an ambitious effort to build a new climate model that could one day聽put climate prediction in the palm of your hand.聽