New model predicts pollen seasons by combining weather and emission data
Tovar LM, De La Paz D, Rodríguez-de La Cruz D, Rojo J, Pérez-Badía R
Phenology
If you've noticed your allergies flare up on different days depending on which park or neighborhood you're in, this model explains why: pollen release timing shifts with altitude, so trees blooming in the hills near you may dust the air days after the ones down in the valley.
Researchers in Spain built a computer model called PEMM that predicts when trees and grasses release their pollen and how that pollen drifts through the air. They tested it on five big allergy triggers: olive, plane trees, cypress, grasses, and oak, and found it was pretty good at guessing when pollen season starts for olive, plane, and oak, while it was better at predicting actual pollen amounts in the air for grasses and plane trees. The model also confirmed something gardeners might already suspect: plants at higher elevations release pollen later than the same species growing lower down.
Key Findings
The PEMM model, coupled with the WRF-CMAQ chemistry-transport system, showed strong spatial agreement between simulated pollen emissions and actual vegetation cover maps in central Spain.
Higher-altitude sites showed systematically delayed pollen season onset, confirming a clear altitudinal dependence of pollen release timing for Olea, Platanus, Cupressaceae, Poaceae, and Quercus.
Model accuracy varied by taxon: Olea, Platanus, and Quercus best matched observed pollen season timing, while daily concentration predictions were strongest for Poaceae (correlation 0.72) and Platanus (correlation 0.62), based on 2020-2021 data from Spanish Aerobiology Network stations.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Spanish scientists built a computer model that predicts when and where pollen from olive, plane, cypress, grass, and oak trees will spread across central Spain, helping allergy sufferers anticipate bad pollen days with better accuracy for some plants than others.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Development and implementation of the PEMM model for pollen emission and dispersion in the central Iberian Peninsula.
Airborne pollen concentrations have increased steadily in recent decades together with shifts in their phenological cycles, leading to higher population exposure and growing public health concerns....
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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The olive is a species of subtropical evergreen tree in the family Oleaceae. Originating in Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean Basin, with wild subspecies in Africa and western Asia; modern cultivars are traced primarily to the Near East, Aegean Sea, and Strait of Gibraltar. ...