Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary on global warming, won an Academy Award this year, and he had been widely expected to win the prize.

He said he would donate his share of the US$1.5 million that accompanies the prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization devoted to conveying the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

"His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change," the Nobel citation said. "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."The committee cited the Panel on Climate Change for two decades of scientific reports that have "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming."Members of the panel, a network of 2,000 scientists, were surprised that it was chosen to share the honor with Gore.

"We would have been happy even if he had received it alone because it is a recognition of the importance of this issue," spokeswoman Carola Traverso Saibante said.