Watery eyes, runny noses and puffy faces will abound this year as a warm winter, human development and climate change converge to create a brutal allergy season that will likely get worse for years to come, according to experts.

Plants like ragweed are in pollen overdrive from very favorable weather, while stinging insects like yellow jackets and hornets are findings new homes farther north. More people are becoming susceptible to allergies over time as pollen seasons are getting longer.

This increases risks for people who are already sensitized and threatens those with respiratory problems. The spread of allergies can have tremendous economic consequences as patients with reactions fill clinics and emergency rooms and as afflicted workers stay home.

Allergy symptoms result from the body's immune system overreacting to a given substance, known as an allergen. The symptoms range from mild, such as itchy eyes and hives, to life-threatening when airways swell shut. These conditions already afflict 60 million people in the United States, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, and annually cost $21 billion.

Though most allergies can be controlled and treated, public health officials have found that an increasing number of people are adversely reacting to pollen, dander, dust and insects. As the climate shifts, these allergens are expanding to new areas, and previously unexposed people are now reaching for antihistamines.

Ragweed is one of the most common allergen sources and has spread in part due to human activity. "There is a growing body of science showing warming temperatures and carbon dioxide levels cause increases in pollen from ragweed," said Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, a public health scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. The plant's pollen is most dangerous from when it flowers in midsummer until when it's killed by the first frost in the fall.

Other pollen sources, like trees, peak in the spring, while grass pollen peaks in the early summer. Warming temperatures have lengthened the risk period for these plants up to several weeks. "It means more misery for allergy sufferers because you're looking at a longer time for exposure to pollen," Rotkin-Ellman said. "All of these factors combine to create a really terrible allergy season."

A rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is also important because it nourishes plants, and fast-growing pollen producers like ragweed are often the quickest to avail themselves of its increasing abundance.

The growing potency of weeds and mold
"When we look at weeds that are associated with pollen, those changes are having a disproportionate effect on their ability to grow and their ability to produce pollen," said Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. He noted that, geographically, these patterns change with latitude, with northern areas of the country showing the most drastic increases in environmental allergens.

Already, parts of the country have broken allergy records. In New Jersey, officials observed the highest pollen levels ever recorded in February this year. "I've never seen that in 25 years of my work in this area," said Leonard Bielory, an attending physician and allergist at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and a professor at Rutgers University's Center for Environmental Prediction. "I told people before the year began that it's going to be a horrendous year."

Bielory co-authored a paper with Ziska last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documenting how the ragweed season has grown up to 27 days in parts of the country since 1995. "It's clear that just in New Jersey over the past 20 to 25 years, there's been an increase of five to seven days for pollen," he said.

5 Comments

1. 1. geojellyroll 03:16 PM 4/30/12

   "....while stinging insects like yellow jackets and hornets are findings new homes farther north.'
   
   ?????????? I live in Canada. We've alsways had yellow jackets and a variety of other stinging members of this insect family.
   
   This is another empty article tossed out to fuel the global warming groupies. File it between 'proof' # 1257 of wetter summers and # 1259 'proof' of drier summers

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2. 2. Shoshin 10:32 PM 4/30/12

   This article gats a WOW. As in Waste of Words.
   
   More idiotic Alarmist garbage.

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3. 3. Dredd 08:58 AM 5/1/12

   A Navy Admiral indicates that the Navy has now been subverted the by global warming hoax, so they will probably try to protect their sailors from the perceived allergy dangers.
   
   Waste of taxpayer dollars?
   
   http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2012/05/has-navy-fallen-for-greatest-hoax.html

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4. 4. bucketofsquid 10:34 AM 5/3/12

   Despite the 3 previous posts, it is interesting that pollen counts are breaking records in many areas and have for the last few years. My allergies kicked in a month early this year. I'm growing plants that were not rated for this growing zone 15 years ago. The climate is changing because that is what climates do.
   
   I wonder what Apfelbaum suggests for those of us that live where ragweed is a native plant. When the pollen.com rating gets to about 11 I usually wear a commercial grade HEPA filter mask. It costs a fortune and looks silly but I can breathe.

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5. 5. mounthell 08:51 PM 5/4/12

   In addition to the rising levels of plant products at ever higher latitudes and altitudes, we seem to be subjected to increasing hot-air effluents from conspiracy theorists. They valiantly spread the alarm that the government is wrongly telling us that the sky is falling when, in fact, they know it to be rising (as heated air is rumored to do).
   
   It is surprising that useful data points reflecting this moist, warm effluent, although sparse, seem to occur in temporal clusters, like 1 - 2 - 3 above. That, in turn, suggests that this frightening trend might be a new, wholly unanticipated anthropogenic effect of human-exacerbated climate change. If so, the effluent may not be adding to earth's heat content as one might expect. In fact, what might be occurring is that the effluent sources are actually absorbing energy and, thereby, reducing the climate's rate of increase.
   
   Given their selflessly ameliorating effect on the hotting climate, it would appear that we all owe conspiracy theorists our gratitude. Indeed, we could do better! We must all encourage the ignored, paranoid personalities on societies' margins to consider taking up a career in climate warming and Shakespeare denial, along with the birthers, millennials and the odd flying-saucer authority. One can imagine television programs, even series, that celebrate such gurus' sensitive and complete understanding of the universe.
   
   Yet, what if the deniers are a product of world governments' scheme to actually _lower_ earth's temperature and drive up the cost of fuels needed to heat our homes and effluent sources so the oil companies can buy more politicians to keep the whole sordid mess running? Oh my, this looks like a new conspiracy!
   
   Is it getting warm in here or is it just me?

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