Is there a way to quantify the amount/degree of scorching of leaves on a plant?

I am a plant pathologist and am constantly running experiments with plants measuring the effects of disease on the plant. Disease symptoms are very similar to your scorching as they are expressed in a very visual manner. What you need to do, is develop a system where you can score the severity of the symptoms.

In bananas, I have a disease severity index that involves me examining each leaf and giving it a score on a 1-6 scale based on the percentage of leaf area showing symptoms. There is some funky maths to do and I get a number which indicates the level of disease for each plant I examine. This could be easily adapted to your scorched plants.

If you like, you can contact me and I will email you an excel template you can use that has the formulas already set up and ready to go. If not, that's fine. Just realise, the beauty of scientific experiments with plants where you have to measure things like disease symptoms or scorch in your case, it is perfectly acceptable to give a scaled ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.