Changes to Airborne Pollen across Europe

In recent years, a strong increase in prevalence and incidence of pollen-related respiratory diseases has been observed. Pollution and western-like lifestyle are supposed to be the main responsible factors for this increment so far. However, under climate change conditions, an increase in the amount of allergenic pollen produced by plants is also expected and partly already observed at local scale, even if no evidence has been reported on a larger scale yet. We present a long-term study at European continental scale focused on trends of airborne pollen by many allergenic species, both grasses and trees. The analysis involves a large number of pollen series monitored at several pollen stations in Europe, and clearly shows an important increase in some of the most dangerous types of pollen for human health. More research is needed to assess the causes of this phenomenon, probably connected to climate change by factors not yet unequivocally identified.