Spring has more than sprung. It has erupted in Tampa Bay.
Over the past few months, piles of pollen have accumulated in clumps of snot-inducing confetti. Cars have a sickly green tint to them. And who hasn’t heard someone say something along the lines of “allergies must be worse this year.”
There is some truth to it.
Climate change is prolonging and intensifying the pollen season across the country, including in Florida. Boosted by warming temperatures, plants and trees are releasing pollen earlier.
“Broadly, climate change is going to make things weird,” said Alyssa Vinson, a Manatee County horticulture extension agent for the University of Florida. “Things are changing.”
Fluctuations in the pollen season have consequences for human and environmental health, experts say. As pollen worsens, it can exacerbate respiratory conditions and just be uncomfortable. And as the planet warms, longer growing seasons can throw off the delicate balance of ecosystems.
Here’s how climate change is affecting pollen season in Florida.
What does a typical pollen “season” look like in Florida?
Florida is lush and green year-round. It’s a benefit to living in nearly constant temperate climate. But there is a consequence — something is always growing.
Around this time of year, trees (particularly oaks) produce the pollen that we typically think of when we see the little yellow fluffs that make us itchy. In Florida, though, irksome allergies can happen any time of year. Grasses in the summertime also can trigger coughing and sneezing. It’s followed by ragweed (a thin purple-stemmed, green flowering plant) in the fall, which is showing signs of worsening from higher amounts of carbon dioxide in the air.
And let’s not forget mold, which is always lurking in Florida humidity.
Marc Frank, a botanist at the University of Florida Herbarium, said people tend to pay more attention to pollen from January through April because that’s when its most visible.
“They see it on the cars, they see it on the patios, they see it on surfaces, and that is almost exclusively tree pollen,” Frank said.
Plants have one goal — to reproduce, and to do so widely. Various plant species go about it in different ways. Vibrant, blooming flowers attract bees. Small, furry mammals drop seeds or nuts all around. Other plants, like some trees, are pollinated when wind sweeps up its pollen and drops it somewhere new.
The wind-pollinated plants are the culprits behind allergies in humans, said Theresa Crimmins, director of the USA National Phenology Network and an associate professor at the University of Arizona.
“All of these events are actually cued by local environmental conditions, and a lot of the times it has a lot to do with temperature,” Crimmins said.
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Explore all your optionsClimate change, spurred on by the burning of fossil fuels, is driving up temperatures across the planet, according to The Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Since the late 19th century, the planet has warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Hotter temperatures have led to wide-reaching changes, like an increase in humidity, shifting rainfall patterns and, on average, shorter winters coupled with earlier spring and summer seasons.
Florida’s average annual temperature has increased by about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, according to the Florida Climate Center at Florida State University.
Over the past few decades, the spring season in the United States has been arriving sooner, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“There’s been a trend for changes in the growing season, and that then correlates with changes in pollen,” said Stefanie Ebelt, a professor of environmental health and epidemiology at Emory University.
A 3-year-old study from climate and environmental researchers from across the country found that over a nearly 30-year period the pollen season has grown on average by 20 days and its intensity has increased 21%.
The study looked at pollen monitoring stations in the U.S., including one in Tampa.
The Tampa location showed that the pollen season was beginning several days earlier than when it launched about 15 years ago. The Tampa site also showed pollen concentrations were growing.
Florida has its own version of winter, with some freezing days, but the state doesn’t have the same black-and-white season change as other parts of the country. So tracking pollen here can be a little more complicated than in northern states, where there is a starker difference between winter and summer.
“It’s not as easy to say, ‘growing season stops here and starts here,’” Crimmins said. “It’s kind of this gradient with overlap.”
Crimmins said, however, that plants that are more sensitive to season change are showing signs of blooming earlier.
“We’ve got more carbon dioxide in the air, which acts like a fertilizer in the short term for plants, enabling them to grow bigger and produce more pollen,” Crimmins said.
Pollen is here. What to know about it?
Longer pollen seasons have larger implications for the environment — in addition to our noses.
“Everything in an ecosystem exists in balance, and when you wait or remove something, the system becomes out of balance, and you start to see those effects ripple outward throughout the rest of the ecosystem,” Vinson said.
For example, if a plant begins to bloom in March, instead of its typical April, a pollinator that arrives in April won’t be there to pollinate that plant. Vinson said the plant may not reproduce as much, and the pollinator’s population could decline, too.
And as much as our ecosystems will feel the change in pollen, we — people with noses that run and eyes that itch — feel it too.
Farnaz Tabatabaian, an allergist and immunologist at the University of South Florida, said doctors know tree pollen season will come each year but when is trickier to nail down.
Last season, blooming began in late December and was consistent throughout the season. This year, cooler temperatures in January kept tree pollen at bay, but by late February it exploded, according to the Tampa pollen station, recorded by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. In recent weeks, pollen counts have begun to drop.
“We know the seasons and things, when they’re going to come, but it’s becoming a little bit more unpredictable because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Tabatabaian said.
For those with asthma or eczema, increased pollen can cause more serious health complications.
Ebelt said her studies show that higher outdoor pollen levels resulted in more emergency room visits for those with respiratory conditions, particularly asthma.
Even for those whose allergies are not taking them to the ER, months out of the year are uncomfortable.
“It is a quality-of-life issue, and it impacts a lot of people … they’re not sleeping well, they’re not functioning well at work,” Tabatabaian said. ”These couple of months are pretty miserable for people.”
Spotlight Tampa Bay
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch and scientists are among those taking The Palladium stage in May to discuss how climate change will affect the Tampa Bay area at the Spotlight Tampa Bay forum. Tickets are $20, or $10 for students with IDs. A limited number of $50 VIP tickets are available. Proceeds will support the Tampa Bay Times Journalism Fund. For more information, click here.
