A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory

A Billion Butterflies – The Inspiring Memoir of the Nobel-Winning Pioneer Behind Modern Weather Prediction A Billion Butterflies tells the extraordinary true story of Dr. Jagadish Shukla, the climate scientist who revolutionized global weather forecasting. Blending the emotional depth of Slumdog Millionaire with the urgency of An Inconvenient Truth, this remarkable memoir charts one man’s journey from a cow shed classroom in rural India to the global stage of climate science innovation. From Humble Beginnings to Global Impact Born into poverty without electricity or formal schooling, Shukla's curiosity and resilience led him to study monsoons at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, and later at MIT and Princeton. In the 1970s, he transformed the field of weather prediction, making it possible to forecast weather beyond 10 days—a breakthrough that has since saved lives, improved disaster response, and revolutionized agriculture worldwide. As a lead author on a UN climate panel