Critical Focus | Cloudy with a Chance of Microbes
THE MICROSCOPE
2016, Volume 64:1, pp. 27–39
DOI
https://doi.org/10.59082/AFWN5816
AUTHOR
Brian J. Ford
EXCERPT
Everyone is talking about the weather, and climate change is high on the global agenda. They are not the same: Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get. We believe that our weather derives from physical forces, but there is a far more remarkable mechanism at work. Much of our climate, surprising as it seems, is controlled by the microbe world. It is microbes that created the oxygen we breathe, the carbon sinks of the world are under microbe control, and clouds form because of microbial action.