The right analogy might be to compare climate with an airplane that keeps on changing its size, shape and weight and has to interact in turn with a constantly changing medium that exhibits far more turbulence than what we are accustomed to.
She is also studying a group of children to see how early M. smithii buildup occurs, and how soon in development it starts to set up a pattern of weight gain that might then be interrupted by changing the composition of the gut microbial world.