The Sunny Day

Today is the kind of day I can't explain. Yesterday, it was humid and cloudy, the day before it was hot, humid and hazy. And then I woke up today at 8am to witness a perfect, sunny, dry, and warm morning. It is too bad that a perfect day of this sort translates to taking photosynthesis data. Lauren was pretty excited - we readied the gigantic, rolling LICOR machine, carefully calibrated it, installed a new CO2 tank, put in some new desiccation and CO2 scrubbing material (which allows you to control for humidity and CO2 levels). Then, as we were about to take the data - in fact, as we had already clamped down on the first leaf of the day, things began to go wrong. The problems revolved around the leaf's boundary area - the thin layer surrounding the leaf where the humidity is much higher than anywhere else. In previous experiments, this layer had never been recorded at more than 3% greater than the greenhouse humidity. However, our leaf chamber was reading relative humidity at levels about 30-40% greater. Indeed. Which is why I am now sitting in the computer lab, while Lauren makes a semi-frantic phone-call to our PI. We are under strict orders not to call the PI after 1:30 (it is 1:45)...so we shall see what happens.

Whoops, time to go..