Meteorologists have known for almost 50 years that the proverbial flapping of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a hurricane in a completely different location…The chaos theorist Edward Norton Lorenz coined the term “butterfly effect” in 1972 to describe the understanding that minimal changes in initial conditions can have a large effect on the later development of dynamic systems…

Results from the new research suggest that, in the future, meteorologists will have to pay attention not only to butterflies but also, and above all, to bacteria living in oceans.

“We have shown the circumstances under which these bacteria release a gas that plays a central role in the formation of clouds,” says Roman Stocker of the Institute of Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich.

Really interesting article. Research that strikes a responsive chord in my heart. Growing up on the New England coast in a boom-or-bust industrial city, our family could always count on the sea to feed us.