A new study conducted on Monday is the latest to suggest that climate change is already making people’s lives worse, this time for people allergic to pollen. Findings indicate that the pollen season in North America has lengthened measurably and that pollen has become more abundant in the last three decades, due in part to a warmer climate.
There are different types of plant and tree pollen that prevail at different times of the year. But usually, the pollen season begins in early spring and extends into summer and early fall. These months are associated with an increase in seasonal allergies, which is also known as hay fever or allergic rhinitis. People who suffer experience cold-like symptoms, such as a stuffy or runny nose, watery eyes, along with itching in the nose and roof of the mouth.
The study’s researchers examined data from U.S. and Canadian pollen count stations, which spanned between 1990 and 2018. During those years, they found that pollen season has changed significantly. Compared to 1990, the average pollen season in an area now starts about 20 days earlier, runs 10 more days, and pumps 21% more pollen. Although this change was seen everywhere, areas such as Texas and the northwestern United States experienced the largest increases in total pollen in those years.
Some studies have found evidence in the lab that warmer temperatures should lead to worse pollen stations. Others have it predicted that some allergy-causing plants like ragweed will spread over the next few decades. But the new findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there is some early research that explicitly links climate change to worse pollen stations and suggests that things are getting worse here and now.
G / O Media may receive a commission
“Our results indicate that human-induced climate change has already worsened U.S. pollen stations,” the authors wrote.
Climate change is not the only factor that makes the pollen season a nightmare for allergy sufferers in recent years, they noted. But according to his model, climate change is likely to be the main culprit for half of the days added during this time, along with 8% of the heaviest pollen count. They also found that climate change has made a greater contribution to the pollen season as the years have passed, which does not bode well for what lies ahead.
“Climate change is likely to have an even greater impact on pollen seasons and respiratory health in the near future,” said study author biologist William Anderegg. at the University of Utah, he told Gizmodo by email. “We saw in our study that the impacts of climate change were more pronounced during the period 2003-2018 compared to the full period of the period 1990-2018. Therefore, at least for the next decade or two, we hope that this trend and the impacts on health will continue. “
Of course, much more pollen each year is not the only thing that climate change threatens to bring when it comes to human health. In the United States, experts fear that longer, warmer seasons will increase the risk of many health problems due to tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease a heart attacks and the heat stroke to the spread of tropical diseases, as warming allows extend poleward.