SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) – Every year, Siouxland sees farmers planting crops in the early spring and harvesting the crops in the fall. But what most people don’t know is that these crops can actually contribute to the current weather conditions in the summer and early fall.
Some people know of corn/crops contributing to the current weather conditions as “corn sweat” but the actual term is known as evapotranspiration. This does not only happen from corn or crops but all plants and trees.
As corn grows throughout the summer, it needs water. When it rains, the water seeps into the ground and the corn (or crops) eventually soak that water up.
Once that water is soaked up by the corn, it needs to be returned to the atmosphere. This is actually part of the water cycle that occurs on a daily basis.
The water cycle consists of several steps.
- Condensation: Which is the process of a gas transforming into a liquid.
- In this case, water vapor transforming into water droplets.
- Precipitation: Which is the process of water (or ice crystals in the winter) falling from the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.
- Infiltration: Which is the process of water/precipitation soaking into the surface.
- Runoff: Which is the process of precipitation that doesn’t get soaked up by the surface and gradually makes its way towards other bodies of water (like streams, lakes, oceans, ponds, etc.).
- Streamflow: Which is the process of the precipitation moving across the surface of the Earth into a body of water.
- Evaporation: Which is the process of water droplets changing into a gas (or water vapor in this case). This is the process in which water returns to the atmosphere as water vapor.
- Transpiration/Evapotranspiration: The process in which water that was soaked up by plants/crops is released into the atmosphere.
- This process is basically the same as evaporation but deals with water transforming into water vapor through plants/crops vs. from other bodies of water.
After it rains or snows, the water either filters into the surface or runs off into other bodies of water. Once the precipitation filters into the surface it is soaked up by plants/crops.
The plants/crops then release the water into the atmosphere as water vapor (evapotranspiration). The water vapor then condenses back into water droplets and the process starts all over again.
If the water doesn’t get soaked up by plants/crops then it becomes runoff and makes its way into a nearby body of water. Once it reaches the body of water and joins all the other water molecules, evaporation takes place, which creates water vapor in the air.
Then condensation takes place, transforming the water vapor back into water droplets in a cloud, letting the process repeat itself.
Corn or crops (and all trees and plants) help create water vapor in the air through the process called evapotranspiration, which comes from transpiration.
Once this process takes place, there is now water vapor in the air. The more water vapor there is in the air, the more moisture there is hanging around in the atmosphere.
Most people think that the more moisture there is in the air, the more humid it will be outside. This is not always true because humidity (or relative humidity) is dependent on moisture and temperature.
This is where dew point temperature is really important to know because this helps determine humidity. Dew point temperature is the temperature at which air must be cooled to become saturated (moist) with water vapor.
The closer the temperature is to the dew point, the more humid the conditions will be. So, if the amount of water vapor (moisture) in the atmosphere increases due to evapotranspiration, the relative humidity increases (and vise versa).
But due to relative humidity also being dependent on temperature, it may not always lead to humid conditions.
Mixing all of this together you can have a really humid day or a not so humid day. But how does this work?
The closer the temperature is to the dew point (or vise versa) the more humid it will be outside. The farther apart they are, the less humid it will be, regardless of how much moisture evapotranspiration adds to the atmosphere.
So does evapotranspiration make it more humid during the summer?
It can if the dew point temperatures and the air temperatures are within a few degrees from one another or are the same. But, if the dew points and temperatures are not close or the same, then it will not be humid (or it will be very low humidity) outside.
The Link LonkJuly 21, 2020 at 12:50AM
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Corn sweat: what is it and how does it contribute to current weather conditions - KCAU 9
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