If you are among the 1 in 4 Americans who suffer during allergy season, then apologies, as it looks like 2024 is bringing the worst yet.
Each year, around 25% of adults,%2DHispanic%20(17.0%25)%20adults.) are knocked down by the combination of pollen and the warming weather. Though science has come a long way in recent years, offering health supplements and tactics to fight back the symptoms, allergy season has seemingly done some evolving of its own with help from climate change.
2024’s allergy season is going to be nasty
As you’re bundling up tissues and shooting nasal spray up your nose, the last thing you want to read is how much more difficult 2024 is going to be. Unfortunately, that’s just the case.
As reported by pollen count data, Spring allergy seasons are starting around 20 days earlier than before and with 20% more pollen. The troubling trend is most prevalent in the Midwestern States like Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, and Minnesota.
Thanks to climate-related symptoms like increased rain and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, the lines between the seasons are also becoming more blurred.
Dr. Gailen Marshall, chair of the allergy and immunology department at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told the New York Times that seasons used to be very separate when he started practicing medicine 40 years ago. Tree pollen would typically hit first in early spring, followed by grass pollen in late Spring and early Summer, and then weed pollen in late Summer and early Fall.
“Now, these seasons end up becoming one long season,” he said.
“The prevalence of allergic rhinitis, which is the technical name for seasonal allergies, has increased each year over the past several decades,” Neelima Tummala from the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences told Scientific American. “Climate change is also impacting the amount of pollen in the air and the length of pollen season.”
How does climate change affect allergy season?
Though scientists are yet to publish categorical proof of how climate change is making allergy season worse, experts in the field have been theorizing about the reasons for some time.
One such theory points to how climate change is heating up the world and reducing the length of the frost-free season between the end of Spring and the start of Fall. This gives plants more time to concoct their pollen.
Another hypothesis suggests that the abundance of carbon dioxide allows plants to produce much more pollen than usual.
Finally, areas that are usually cold throughout the year are suddenly finding themselves with warmer weather. In turn, this allows pollen-producing plants to thrive and make your life more difficult.
