A flooded rice field. Microbes in the soil release methane when rice fields are flooded, adding to greenhouse gas emissions. (Credit: Jet Rockkk/.Shutterstock)

The real impact of climate change depends on tiny organisms we can’t even see, argues an international panel of more than 30 microbiologists in a consensus statement published Tuesday.

Microbes, or microorganisms, are any organism or virus invisible to the naked eye. Numbering in the nonillions (in the U.S., that’s 10,000,000,000,