You might have recently heard about “corn sweat” on the news. Does corn really sweat? And how can it affect our weather?
Corn releases moisture. And like sweat, it evaporates,or changes from a liquid to a gas. This happens in all plants—not just corn. And it isn’t really sweat. The process is called transpiration. Plants take in water from the soil through their roots. The water moves throughout the plant and evaporates from the plant’s leaves.
The water vapor goes into the air. The added water increases humidity levels. Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. Humidity makes it feel hotter. When sweat evaporates off our skin, it makes us feel cooler. But when humidity is high, the air already has a lot of water vapor in it. Our sweat does not evaporate as well, and we do not cool off as well.
So “corn sweat” cools the corn, but it makes humans feel hotter!
What Do You Think? Did you experience the effects of “corn sweat” this summer?
Photo Credit: Smereka/Shutterstock
