Allergies Worse Than Ever? Blame Global Warming
Allergy sufferers like to claim — in between sniffles — that each spring’s allergy season is worse than the last. But this year, they might actually be right.
Thanks to an unusually cold and snowy winter, followed by an early and warm spring, pollen counts are through the roof in much of the U.S., especially in the Southeast, which is already home to some of the most allergenic cities in the country. A pollen count — the number of grains of pollen in a cubic meter of air — of 120 is considered high, but in Atlanta last week the number hit 5,733, the second highest level ever recorded in the city. (See a 1992 TIME cover on why allergies are nothing to sneeze at.)
The bad news is that in a warmer world, allergies are likely to get worse — and that’s going to cost sufferers and the rest of us. A new report released on Wednesday by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) found that global warming will likely increase pollen counts in the heavily populated eastern section of the country and that the effect of climate change could push the economic cost of allergies and asthma well above the current $32 billion price tag. “The latest climate science makes it clear that allergies could get much worse,” says Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist at NWF and the author of the report. “I really think this should be a wake-up call.”
Here’s how it works: higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere generally speed plant growth, while warmer temperatures mean that spring — and with it, allergy season — arrives earlier. Spring-like conditions in the East are already arriving on average 14 days earlier than just 20 years ago. (See why allergies are on the rise in children.)
===========================================
Gosh, it HAS to be CO2, it couldn’t possibly be related to changes in rainfall, sunlight, available nutrients (like fertilizer runoff) or winds. No, only CO2 can make weeds grow like crazy. Apparently the Times writer never heard of Liebigs Law
Read the rest of the story here, then wipe your nose on your sleeve.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Since all of us human beings have to eat food, this is a very good thing. So which way would anyone reasonable want it to be? Some suffering allergies, and all eat well, or fewer or less allergic reactions and all live in famine?
Annei (02:26:26) :
“I read the rest of the “Time” article. It included an assertion that pine trees don’t produce pollen!”
WHAT!! Pine trees produce a “huge” size pollen that is yellow in color and coats everything, the car, the windshields, the water in the water troughs…..
Pine pollen may ruin your car’s paint finish but it is so large in size it normally does not produce the allergic reaction other tree pollen does. (that is according to my allergist)
Thanks to an unusually cold and snowy winter, followed by an early and warm spring, pollen counts are through the roof in much of the U.S., especially in the Southeast,
I spent c8 weeks during Febrary and March in SW Florida. It has been a (much) colder than usual winter in FL. With pretty constant NW or NE winds that continued thoughout March. Not much sign of “an early and warm spring” there.
Bryan Walsh loves to print these contradictory claims. You know, East Coast blizzards to be common place with global warming because warm air has a higher moisture capacity than cold air. Spring is coming early because it’s warmer and plants will spew out more pollen. Too bad it was 10+ F COLDER than average when it snowed, all throughout the eastern U.S. in Feb. Too bad spring was LATE by a week in the eastern U.S. this year. Regardless of whether Spring came earlier, how would that EVER translate into unusually high pollen counts? The trees do not know any different; they react, it isn’t as if they say “da** people for making me wake up early and bud, I cast extra pollen unto thee!”
Gail Combs/b> (10:25:14) :
WHAT!! Pine trees produce a “huge” size pollen that is yellow in color and coats everything, the car, the windshields, the water in the water troughs…..
And it sticks. Pine pollen is nature’s way of letting you see what you’d be driving if you had ordered your car with a canary yellow paint job.
Captain Cosmic (04:45:52): Despite a probable increase in net biomass with increasing CO2 concentrations, there could be a loss in plant biodiversity as the big greedy plants with a high relative growth rate totally out-compete everything else. This happens anywhere you add loads of any nutrients of any sort to an ecosystem and upset the delicate battle for resources
Uh oh. Here’s comes the “delicate balance of nature” argument again. Darwin would disagree, Capt. Cosmic. There is NO SUCH THING as the “balance of nature”. It’s a jungle out there, and a struggle from the get go. Every species that’s living has a competitive advantage or they would have been out-competed to extinction. Big greedy plants!!!!! Try not to get your pop ethics tangled up in your dispassionate science.
BTW, a 1% change in CO2 is NOT loading the nutrients on. Also, I suggest MiracleGrow, not dry ice, in greenhouses. It’s cheaper and doesn’t drive the temperature down. Greenhouses are as much about keeping the plants warm as anything else, because frost kills the seedlings and cold makes them grow slow. Warmer Is Better when it comes to plants. For example, compare the plant biomass and diversity on a typical Amazon acre to that on a typical Antarctica acre.
Hi,
You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick – I’m on your side! I never said anything about a silly Gaia-like ‘balance’ (in fact I didn’t say ‘balance’ at all, did I?)- all plants and animals live on the edge of existance and death by starvation is never far away. So it is a ‘battle’ and a ‘battleground’, words I used above.
The reason for biodiversity is generally due to patchiness in habitats, there’s slightly more light here, less water there, more nitrogen here. The ‘battle’ is about plants developing subtly different strategies to cope with these slightly different conditions. One species will always outcompete another in a particular microhabitat – ‘competitive exclusion’ – so patchiness is the key to biodiversity.
If you consider that it is nitrogen in nature is normally the most limiting factor and is also very patchy, then those ‘greedy’ plants that have evolved to live in places with high nutrients (such as stinging nettles for example) will simply spring up everywhere if you dump a lot of fertiliser in a habitat. Urtica dioica (nettles) if I remember correctly hold the ‘world record’ for the rate of uptake and use of nitrogen so there is nothing that can live with them in a nitrogen unlimited habitat. In no time they will have completely taken over (they’re a nuisance but now you’ve got to admire them!). This is why agricultural runoff into rivers etc causes such concerns.
I’m a plant ecologist so am reasonably familiar with Darwinian theories. I’m not one of those silly hippy conservationists either, I consider the process of nature far more important than the end result. I was trying to add a little more detail to the debate, that’s all. I think both sides of the AGW debate don’t do themselves any favours when they over-simplify ideas. Shouting people down and insulting those who are trying to add something constructive to the debate happens often on these blogs which is a shame. After all, one of our biggest criticisms of the ‘other side’ is that they lack objectivity, isn’t it?
Am I the only one to point out that there are both pollen and MOLD allergies? One is greater when warm and dry the other is greater when damp and cool…
You don’t get MORE allergies with warmth, you get DIFFERENT allergies.
Also, do I have to be the one to point out that there is always some plant that is happy with whatever the temperature regime happens to be, so you will simply be shifting the particular plants making pollen if you change the temperature (in either direction…)
There is NO escape… The Pollen and Mold will find you!!! 😉