[TML] Alien ecologies

[Knapp]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 2:14 AM, Jerry W Barrington
<jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/28/08 5:42 AM, "Robert O'Connor" <robocon at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Jerry Barrington wrote:
>>> No, it is not.  Did you look at the link I mentioned for chlorophyll's
>>> absorption spectra?
>>
>> No. I used graphs like these:
>> http://www.mbari.org/staff/ryjo/cosmos/Cabs.gif
>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Solar_Spectrum.png
>
> The chlorophyll one looks near enough like the one in the wiki.  So I took
> your 2 pics and scaled them the the same scale on the wavelengths, and put
> them in 1 pic.
>
> <http://www.geocities.com/jursamaj/MergedGraphs.png>
>
> Remember that the height of the solar spectrum has been squished by a factor
> of 10.55, so differences are way more then this makes clear.  Note the the
> blue peak of chlorophyll a (the most common form, considered "universal") is
> well down from the peak of sunlight, by about 30-38%.  Even the red peak
> seems to line up with a dip in the sunlight of about 10%.  That one gets
> even worse the further you go above sea level, or under overcast.
> Chlorophyll b seems better overall, but is less common than a.

For light to get to the chlorophyll it must go through the leave. What
and how much does this filter out of what gets to the chlorophyll? If
it is significant how does this effect what the chlorophyll is tuned
to?


-- 
Douglas E Knapp

http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page