"Corn Sweat" Is A Real Thing, And It's Making The Midwest Humid As Fuck This Weekend

ABC News - A phenomenon called "corn sweat" could exacerbate the impacts of the extreme heat blanketing a large portion of the United States, according to experts.

The process -- known by the scientific term "evapotranspiration" -- is the natural process by which plants move water from the roots of the plant to the surface, according to Ohio State University. The water then evaporates into the atmosphere, making the local region feel more humid.

"The term refers to the amount of moisture, the humidity that the plants take from the soil to cool off," Bruno Basso, a professor of sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University, told ABC News.

All crops with a vascular system can experience evapotranspiration, but summer crops are the most common, Basso said.

"All of our plants are transpiring moisture to the atmosphere," Aaron Wilson, a weather-climate field specialist at Ohio State University and the state climatologist of Ohio, told ABC News

It’s 102 degrees in the shade. The humidity is thick enough to chew. You step outside and instantly look like you jumped in a pool. And you think, “Why does it feel like the inside of an armpit out here?” Well, science finally has an answer, and it’s the most Midwestern thing ever- the corn is sweating.

According to a bunch of scientists s at Ohio State and Michigan State, there’s this whole process called "evapotranspiration". It’s not just a word they made up to win scrabble. It’s techincally how plants move water from their roots, up through the leaves, and then put it back into the air.

Here's a good quick video explaining it.

And corn is basically the Michael Phelps of plant sweat. 

A single acre of corn can dump up to 4,000 gallons of water into the atmosphere a day. That’s enough to refill your above-ground pool. 

So if you’re cruising down I-80, windows down, wondering why it smells like a Jolly Rancher left in a gym sock, thank the corn. It’s "pollinating". AKA filling up with grain, and it’s sweating harder than a guy with a pocket full of cocaine at a DUI checkpoint.

And it’s not just corn. Soybeans are in on the act too. Ninety million acres of corn, eighty million of soybeans, together they form a sort of agricultural Turkish bath stretching from Illinois to Ohio. 

This explains so much. I've always wondered how and why it got so humid in the summer in parts of the Midwest.

p.s. - never forget #Trent

Advertisement

p.p.s. - Seriously can't believe Colbert got canned when he had side splitting bits like this every night.

p.p.p.s. - does the whole "its 85 degrees but it feels like 106 with humidity" thing drive anybody else nuts?