| Summary: | It is difficult to imagine two fields more different in their methods, tools, and objectives than climate science and microbiology, and yet there is a vital connection between these two endeavors. Microbes are critical players in every geochemical cycle relevant to climate including carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and others. The sum total of microbial activity is enormous, but the net effect of microbial activities on the concentration of carbon dioxide and other climate-relevant gases is currently not known. The past two decades have witnessed an explosion in our recognition of the diversity of the microbial world, as new technologies have made it possible to characterize microbial communities in ever greater detail. Modeling, too, has experienced tremendous advances in its capabilities. For all the progress, however, we are not able to measure microbial processes in such a way as to allow climate scientists to include them in models of global climate
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