Artificial intelligence discovers long-term influencers hiding in noisy systems

They say in chaos theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could unwittingly set up a tornado in Texas. But that tornado should at least need some time to form, given the 5,000-mile distance between the two regions. This time delay between cause and effects in climate patterns is well apparent in the less-dramatized example of El Niño events (as explained in this video). These events occur roughly every two to seven years. But when they do, they build up over several months and their effects can take several months more to spread around the world.