Guest essay by Eric Worrall
University of Michigan models suggest that increased rates of plant growth due to warmer temperatures will boost pollen allergies.
Pollen season is getting longer and more intense with climate change – here’s what allergy sufferers can expect in the future
Published: March 16, 2022 3.08am AEDT
Yingxiao Zhang
Ph.D. Student in Atmospheric Science, University of MichiganAllison L. Steiner
Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of MichiganBrace yourselves, allergy suffers – new research shows pollen season is going to get a lot longer and more intense with climate change.
Our latest study finds that the U.S. will face up to a 200% increase in total pollen this century if the world continues producing carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources at a high rate. Pollen season in general will start up to 40 days earlier in the spring and last up to 19 days longer than today under that scenario.
As atmospheric scientists, we study how the atmosphere and climate affect trees and plants. While most studies focus on pollen overall, we zoomed in on more than a dozen different types of grasses and trees and how their pollen will affect regions across the U.S. in different ways. For example, species like oak and cypress will give the Northeast the biggest increase, but allergens will be on the rise just about everywhere, with consequences for human health and the economy.
…
How much pollen is produced depends on how the plant grows. Rising global temperatures will boost plant growth in many areas, and that, in turn, will affect pollen production. But temperature is only part of the equation. We found that the bigger driver of the future pollen increase will be rising carbon dioxide emissions.
The higher temperature will extend the growing season, giving plants more time to emit pollen and reproduce. Carbon dioxide, meanwhile, fuels photosynthesis, so plants may grow larger and produce more pollen. We found that carbon dioxide levels may have a much larger impact on pollen increases than temperature in the future.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/pollen-season-is-getting-longer-and-more-intense-with-climate-change-heres-what-allergy-sufferers-can-expect-in-the-future-179158
The abstract of the study;
Projected climate-driven changes in pollen emission season length and magnitude over the continental United States
Yingxiao Zhang & Allison L. Steiner
Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 1234 (2022) Cite this article
Abstract
Atmospheric conditions affect the release of anemophilous pollen, and the timing and magnitude will be altered by climate change. As simulated with a pollen emission model and future climate data, warmer end-of-century temperatures (4–6 K) shift the start of spring emissions 10–40 days earlier and summer/fall weeds and grasses 5–15 days later and lengthen the season duration. Phenological shifts depend on the temperature response of individual taxa, with convergence in some regions and divergence in others. Temperature and precipitation alter daily pollen emission maxima by −35 to 40% and increase the annual total pollen emission by 16–40% due to changes in phenology and temperature-driven pollen production. Increasing atmospheric CO2 may increase pollen production, and doubling production in conjunction with climate increases end-of-century emissions up to 200%. Land cover change modifies the distribution of pollen emitters, yet the effects are relatively small (<10%) compared to climate or CO2. These simulations indicate that increasing pollen and longer seasons will increase the likelihood of seasonal allergies.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28764-0
For starters, I’m pretty sure allergies will not be a problem in the future. Medicines today are far better than what was available when I first developed symptoms. I would be very surprised if allergies are still a significant issue a few decades from now, let alone by the end of the century.
But there is a more immediate counter to this claim. As an asthmatic who also suffers pollen allergy, I have personally observed this issue is more complex than the scientists are suggesting.
There is a reason older people move to warm places like Florida or Queensland, even if they are asthmatic or have allergies.
When I moved from cold Britain to the Australian subtropics, my allergies became easier to manage.
Why? Even though the pollen season is longer in my new home, it seems more spread out.
The pollen explosion in cold places like Britain tends to be short duration but extremely intense. It has to be intense, because the growing season is short. Pollination for many plants must occur right at the start of the growing season, or fruits and seeds might not mature fast enough to be ready before the frost arrives.
In warmer places, there is much less pressure on plants to seize every precious day of growing season. Plants flower most of the year, and fruits like citrus comfortably continue growing through winter, usually maturing the following Spring.
Overall my experience is the move to a warmer climate helped me manage my asthma and hay fever. I encounter my other major trigger, cold air, a lot less frequently in Australia than I did in Britain. The reduced exposure to cold air, and the lack of violent changes in pollen exposure, makes it much easier to manage my asthma and hay fever with medications.
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I knew there was some drawback on plants growing, but never could lay my hand on it. Now I know.
From the article: “How much pollen is produced depends on how the plant grows. Rising global temperatures will boost plant growth in many areas, and that, in turn, will affect pollen production.”
I think I see a flaw in your narrative. You are apparently assuming, without any evidence, that global temperatures will rise higher. What if they don’t rise higher? I guess that would blow your claims out of the water, if cooling were to happen, wouldn’t it?
Another atmospheric scientist who is assuming too much and basing claims on assumptions, not facts. This is the current state of Alarmist Climate science.
The temperatures have cooled 0.7C from the 2016 highpoint. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
“University of Michigan models suggest that increased rates of plant growth due to warmer temperatures will boost pollen allergies.” This brings up one of my favorite responses to the climate claims. Why are the northern states like Michigan, where these suggestive models are from, not marketing themselves as obvious havens for all those pollen-challenged climate refugees from Florida?
Eric, you should see what happens in the spring in Central BC, after several days of no wind. When it does come, yellow clouds of pollen can be seen for miles away. I never suffered, but you are completely right in this article.
Usually the clouds of yellow pollen are pine. Pine pollen is actually too large to cause allergic reactions unless you are particularly sensitive to pine, but if that is the case you will usually see skin rashes as well.. The usual pollens to cause allergy are the smaller ones you don’t see.
“The pollen explosion in cold places like Britain tends to be short duration but extremely intense. It has to be intense, because the growing season is short.”
This is similar to the difference in summer fun from living in New England and Florida. I grew up in Connecticut where summer fun would start at the end of June and end in early September allowing only a limited time to enjoy summer fun. So you went balls to the wall every weekend to maximize your summer fun before it was over. If you lost even one weekend due to bad weather is was disappointing. Living in Florida for over 30 years now, not so much worry about missing out on good weather days, with so much good weather year around the attitude changes from short intense activity to oh well, no big deal we can always do that another day.
Funny, I don’t see any botanists on the authors list. Who checked the model assumptions for comportance with the real world that plants occupy?
I see this often in climate science – invent novel statistical methods with no mathematicians let alone statisticians on the author list; Create plant proxies with no biologist on the author list; Talk about ocean pH without an oceanographer or chemist on the author list; pretend computer games produce real data without a single field check or even professional computer gamer on the author list. (OK, I may have gone to far on the last…)
I stopped reading after “University of Michigan models”.
One could spin it even further: more warming means also more water vapor in the atmosphere and more precipitation, so the increased amount of pollen is washed down by more rainfall, bla bla bla …
Whoopie Fuquing Do. CO2 is what greens the earth, so get over yourselves while whining about pollen with the breathlessness of Chicken Little.
The absurdity of this premise is real, and the comments are quite amusing and entertaining. However, it has to be noted that someone is getting a PhD from this ‘work’ and a professor is adding another notch to her belt. This will merely add to the cacophony of “scientists” proclaiming the horrors of Climate Change.
That part isn’t amusing.
Seems to me this would be easy enough to test in the real world – they could do controlled tests using greenhouses, right?
But I guess models are better than reality?
Beware, Climate Change will cause giant, orb-weaving spiders to invade the East Coast and beyond! They build their webs in trees, well off the ground, where bicyclists, joggers, etc. can run into them and be face to face with these creatures. Oops, they already have.
We’re doomed.
I guess the climate change crowd never heard of anti-histimines.
In the future, children won’t know what “going outside to play” means.
Academia has prostituted itself into total irrelevance. Never before has the phrase “a recent study” been so utterly sterile of any authority or significance.
Another recent study shows that this will be a good month for Capricorns. Look out for a dark handsome stranger.
they have created the phony narrative that CO2 will set the planet on fire, make oceans rise hundreds of feet, etc. None of that is happening so they search frantically about for ANY support for reducing the paltry human contribution to CO2 and/or warming as the wheels come off the Satanic Gases wagon.
University of Michigan models suggest that increased rates of plant growth due to warmer temperatures
That’s a lie already.
Abundant research has made it clear that the dominant reason for the current greening of the earth (30% increase in plant growth) is increased CO2, and that warming is a comparatively much smaller contributor.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/10/04/co2-fertilisation-and-the-greening-of-the-sahara/
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/world-wheat-crop-heads-for-new-record/
They both play a role. Tree lines are advancing upwards world wide and northward in the Arctic. I don’t believe there is much of a tree line in the Antarctic.
OH PLEASE, STOP IT!
That’s like saying I hate having all that gold because it weighs so much, and the stupid goes on.
it would literally have to double the pollen to compensate for the environmental destruction and pentuple the pollen to make up for deforestation.
TV and them Cell phones were the start of all this propaganda , they had this planned for a long time and now they are in the open for all of us to see. I wish i had a solution, it will take a better brain than mine to stop this. Climate change lockdowns are coming, mark my words
CO2 is plant food and whereas more plants produce more pollen they also produce more food, emit more oxygen and adsorb more CO2 so overall a win….
Dang, I will have to buy another bottle of Zyrtec every year.
Gee, if there were NO plants there would be no allergies. Of course, we’d all stave to death but what’s a few bodies when we can avoid allergies.
As a forest geneticist, retired, who spent many springs collecting, drying, and using tree pollen in controlled crosses, I find this “study” a bunch of nonsense. The onset of pollen development and shedding in most North American tree species is driven by photoperiod. Last time I checked, anthropogenic CO2 isn’t yet affecting day length…
Once pollen development begins, temperature and humidity are the key drivers of pollen shedding. Warmer and drier means faster shedding, which means a shorter period of pollen flight. And of course, pollen development and shedding has a strong genetic component, with some clones consistently early, others more mid-season, and others late. Again, warmer and drier will compress the pollination season, wetter and cooler will extend it.