How the U.S. Corn Belt Is Helping Us Understand Climate Change

Science has long known that corn, out of all types of vegetation, is particularly adept at removing carbon emissions from the air. Now, using sophisticated satellite data, NASA reports it's got a new bead on just how much the silky plant is affecting the carbon cycle.* For one thing, the fecundity of corn in the United States is a lot more than expected: Past research underestimated the plant's nationwide growth by as much as 60 percent, says the space agency.

To investigate the vast abundance of maturing kernels in America, NASA trained satellites down at the U.S. "Corn Belt," which stretches from Ohio to Nebraska and Kansas. Because chlorophyll emits a tiny bit of invisible fluorescence, the space-locked instruments detected what the human eye cannot: An intensely productive swath of greenery that, during the growing season, shows a photosynthetic frenzy greater than any other place on Earth. At its peak in July, the Corn Belt can even hold reservoirs of chlorophyll that are 40 percent greater than what's found in the Amazon.