Gases and Atmospheric Chemistry

I find that this is probably one of the most interesting articles I have found. This article is discussing some new bacteria called microbes that are potentially found to be affecting the earth’s atmosphere by promoting the formation of ice droplets or of freezing. These bacteria are found to be living in earth’s upper troposphere and are feasting on the carbon compounds that are helping warm the planet. This could mean that the airborne microbes could play a bigger role for cloud formation. They in fact have recently found over 17 different bacterial taxa and on average, 20% of small particle found in the upper atmosphere are living bacterial cells! I found this article absolutely amazing. This is such a new and innovative idea that we found these little creatures in our troposphere that are potentially messing around with our clouds? This is amazing! After some research, if we could find a way to manipulate them, we could literally have somewhat of a control on our weather! Or, maybe we could even use then as a predictability device? Who knows! To me this is absolutely ground-breaking and I’m so excited to see where this research goes. What do you think? Could this be a positive or negative finding? What could be some concerns we could have?

Article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/bacteria-chilling-out-earths-upper-atmosphere-might-affect-cloud-formation-and-climate