For some people, spring in the Willamette Valley means time spent outdoors in the sunshine, enjoying the warming weather and admiring the blooming flowers and blossoming trees. For others, this season is riddled with itches eyes, irritated noses, and boxes of allergy medications and tissues. Unfortunately for seasonal allergy sufferers, this is only predicted to get worse as a result of rapid climate change.
Most of us know the general story behind climate change; increased global emissions from the transportation and industrial sectors and the release of other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has resulted in an overall warming of the planet. While the warming of regional climates varies all over the world, the state of Oregon has seen a rise in annual temperatures of about 2°F. While this may not sound like a drastic change, this 2°F increase is huge in the plant world.
In a study published in the European Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, researchers found that as annual temperatures increase and spring begins earlier most years, and plants respond with increased productivity. Because plants undergo photosynthesis to create their food, earlier springs mean more time to grow their leaves, and increases in greenhouse gases like CO2 – which plants use in photosynthesis to create sugars – means grasses, flowers, and tree blossoms can produce more pollen.
In addition, most grasses can be grouped into two categories; ones that bloom in the spring, and ones that bloom in the late summer and early fall. Because the warm seasons are extending into colder seasons and grasses have more time to grow, their productive periods are now overlapping. The spring-blooming grasses are still flowering near the end of summer when the summer-blooming grasses are starting. This means more pollen concentrations are being recorded in the air than ever before.
This is all bad news for allergy sufferers of the Willamette Valley, especially those who live in Linn County, locally known as the “grass seed capital of the world.” But even if you live outside of Linn County, you are probably not far from a grass seed farm.
Approximately half of all the farm acreage in the Willamette Valley is made up of grass seed fields. On top of all these grasses that are now producing more pollen over longer periods of time, climate change is also changing wind patterns throughout the year, especially during warm periods. This means all that additional pollen, created by increased rates of photosynthesis, can travel farther distances as it becomes wind-borne, further exacerbating problems for those with allergies; a.k.a., a double climate change whammy.
In addition to changes in wind patterns, Oregon and other temperate regions of the world are also experiencing a shift in usual precipitation regimes as the climate changes, with winters receiving less rain and snow, and summers hotter and dryer than they were 50 to 100 years ago.
“Altered precipitation (i.e., drier conditions) could also make things a bit worse, because wind dispersed pollen is removed from the atmosphere when it rains,” said Dr. Andrew Jones, head of the Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Lab at Oregon State University. This means that, along with the myriad other negative effects of less rain – such as lower rivers, drier soils and forests, pollen is no longer knocked out of the air by brief summer showers.
According to the American Academy of Asthma, Allergies, and Immunology (AAAAI), over the past 50 years there has been a rise in prevalence of people who experience allergic reactions. In the year of 2012 alone, 17.6 million adults in the U.S. were diagnosed with “hay fever,” or an allergy to environmental pollens and/or mold.
So unfortunately, while Oregonians are known to love their hikes and outdoor time, allergy sufferers will continue to be plagued by itchy eyes and irritated noses as long as emissions continue to be released into the atmosphere at a high rate and climate change persists at its accelerated speed, making it miserable for those who suffer through some of the most beautiful seasons of the year.
By: Lauren Zatkos
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