U.S. climatologist John Kutzbach has received the International Science and Technological Cooperation Award, China's top science honor for foreigners, Business Standard reported.
The 80-year-old scientist, who is also a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said that receiving the award is a "great honor," the article quoted the Xinhua News Agency.
Kutzbach, along with four other foreign scientists and an international group, was recognized for helping China in advancing its research in global climate change.
The climatologist was not able to attend the awarding ceremony held in Beijing last January for health reasons.
In an interview, Kutzbach got emotional after he recalled that his three-decade partnership with China has only commenced when two Chinese scientists visited his university back in the '80s.
"You can't see the future very well. So I had no dream that our work together would lead to so much scientific accomplishment involving so many U.S. and Chinese scientists and also deep friendships," he shared.
Kutzbach also believes that this cooperation should continue even under the Trump administration as it is "not something that has a beginning and an end."
"We are doing this not for our generation, but for the future of our two countries. It's my hope the strong scientific cooperation between our two countries will strengthen and grow," he further said.
For Cen Jianjun, the Chinese embassy's Minister Counsellor for Education, the professor is an internationally recognized, top-notch scientist who is considered as one of the pioneers of paleoclimate modeling.
Kutzbach's works in the field focused on studying the "responding and feeding back mechanisms in the simulation of changing Earth process through groundbreaking connections of climatology, geology and ecology sciences with numerical method of physics and bio-geochemistry," the article wrote.
"In the last 30 years, Kutzbach has made a great contribution in promoting bilateral cooperation in scientific technologies and selflessly passes his knowledge and wisdom to our Chinese scientists. I would like to represent the Chinese government to express our heartfelt thanks to Kutzbach," Cen said.
Born in 1937, Kutzbach is a long-term director of the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Center for Climate Research. In 2006, he was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.