New research that came out early this week is the latest to study that suggests climate change is already making the lives of people worse, this time for those who are allergic to pollen.
The findings, according to Gizmodo, "show pollen season in North America has gotten measurably longer," and that pollen has turned out to be more abundant over the past 30 years partly because of a warmer climate.
There are different types of pollen from plants and trees that become widespread at different times of a particular year.
However, usually, the pollen season begins in early spring and continues through the entire summer and start of fall.
The said months are linked to an uptick in seasonal allergies, also called hay fever or allergic rhinitis. People allergic to pollen experience symptoms similar to colds such as runny or stuffy nose, watery eyes with itchy nose and sometimes, roof of the mouth.
Pollen Count Stations Studied
The study authors studied data from pollen count stations through the United States and Canada, stretching from 1990 to 2018.
During those said years, they discovered that pollen season has considerably changed. Compared to 1990, the average pollen season in a location now begins roughly 20 days earlier, and it runs 10 days longer.
More so, this present-time season is pumping out 21-percent more pollen. While such a change was observed elsewhere such as, Texas and the mid-western US saw the highest rise in total pollen over those years.
Furthermore, some studies have discovered evidence in the laboratory that warmer temperature should result in worse pollen seasons.
Others predict that specific allergy-causing plants like ragweed will turn out to be more prevalent over the next few decades.
However, these new findings which the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published, is some of the first studies to explicitly link climate change to worse pollen seasons, not to mention, propose that it is making things worse here and now.
Climate Change Caused by Humans
In this study, result also specified that climate change has already turned worse in North American pollen seasons.
They also noted that climate change is not the only factor that makes "the pollen season more of a nightmare for allergy sufferers in recent years."
Nevertheless, based on their model, it is possible that climate change is mainly responsible for roughly half of the additional days seen over time, along with about eight percent of the "heavier pollen counts."
Furthermore, the study investigators discovered too, that climate change has had a greater contribution on the pollen season as years went by, which does not precisely bode well for what's going to happen in the future.
Lastly, according to the University of Utah biologist and study author William Anderegg, they saw in their study that the effects of climate change were more evident over the 2003 to 2018 period, as compared to the entire 1990-2018 period.
Therefore at least for the next 10 or 20 years, the study author elaborated, they very much anticipate this trend, as well as the health effects to continue.
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