--- description: Find out why Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh is one of the 100 most influential people of 2021. title: Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh: The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb624d010fd8ff42b/698a1cd7929fadc75ebf7b2e/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 14, 2021 # Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh by Bill McKibben  Otto: Horst Friedrichs—Anzenberger/Redux; Oldenborgh: Merlijn Doomernik For many years, the standard mantra in news stories about hurricanes and heat waves was that no single event can be linked to [climate change](https://time.com/tag/climate-change/ "undefined"), though scientists say global warming makes events like this more common. Thanks to Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and their colleagues at the [World Weather Attribution](https://time.com/6079744/climate-weather-attribution/ "undefined") project, we can now speak much more confidently: this summer, for instance, when a [massive heat wave](https://time.com/6078374/hottest-june-north-america/ "undefined") shattered records across the Pacific Northwest, their team quickly issued a deep statistical analysis that concluded the soaring heat was “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.” The pair—she’s German; he’s Dutch—have assembled researchers from around the world capable of rapid reaction, in contrast to the equally crucial years-long analyses of global systems performed by the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That speed means that people reading about our accelerating string of disasters increasingly get the most important information of all: it’s coming from us. _McKibben is an author and an environmentalist_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095982/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095982/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh/"},"headline":"Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh: TIME 100 2021","datePublished":"2021-09-14T17:30:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:15.161Z","description":"Find out why Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh made the 2021 TIME100 list.","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095982/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","T100 2021"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb624d010fd8ff42b/698a1cd7929fadc75ebf7b2e/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb624d010fd8ff42b/698a1cd7929fadc75ebf7b2e/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095982/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh/","name":"Friederike Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh: TIME 100 2021"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME100 | See Everyone on the 2021 TIME100 List","description":"See every 2021 TIME100 Honoree in One Minute","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ZgB6AGK2/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2021-09-15T10:45:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ZgB6AGK2.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095982/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh/","duration":"PT57S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095982/friederike-otto-geert-jan-van-oldenborgh/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```