Airborne Pollen Transport

This chapter reviews the present knowledge and previous developments concerning the pollen transport in the atmosphere. Numerous studies are classified according to the spatial scales of the applications, key processes considered, and the methodology involved. Space-wise, local, regional and long-range scales are distinguished. An attempt of systematization is made towards the key processes responsible for the observed patterns: initial dispersion of pollen grains in the nearest vicinity of the sources at micro-scale, transport with the wind, mixing inside the atmospheric boundary layer and dry and wet removal at the regional scale, and the long-range dispersion with synoptic-scale wind, exchange between the boundary layer and free troposphere, roles of dry and wet removal, interactions with chemicals and solar radiation at the large scales.