Studies on factors influencing ragweed pollen counts in the New York metropolitan district

Atmospheric pollen grains and spores in relation to allergy. II

“…Hesselman (1919) trapped pollen on two lightships in the Gulf of Bothnia, distant respectively 18^ and 30 miles east ofthe coast of Sweden, and in the course of 41 days (16 May to 25 June) registered over the whole period catches composed almost entirely of coniferous and birch pollen and equivalent to daily averages of 40 and 22/cm^ at the two stations respectively. Wiseman et al (1954) trapped pollen on the Ambrose Lightship off Sandy Hook, 9 miles from the nearest land; they found th^t the total seasonal count there was 46% in 1949 and 60% in 1950 ofthe average count for New York City, the daily counts on some days being higher than at their land stations. Sreeramulu (1958a), using a Hirst trap at 70 ft above sea level on a voyage in the Mediterranean in October-November 1956, found a variety of fungus spores and pollen grains of terrestrial origin; in Malta Harbour he recorded up to 222 fungus spores and seventeen pollen grains per cubic metre, though when the ship was travelling at a distance of about 50 miles from shore total concentrations fell to about 13/m^.…”

Pollen allergy in the Bilbao area (European Atlantic seaboard climate): pollination forecasting methods

“…It would be more useful for the allergist to use a clinical criterion, which would be the days of potential pollination above the symptom threshold. Regarding the method and constants to be used, there are different appreciation criteria for each author [10,11,[19][20][21][22]25], depending on the weather, the type of taxon and its importance regarding the sensitization of patients in each specific area. The sensitivity of the forecasting might be for periods (10 days) or for days.…”

“…Driessen [24] applied a mathematical model with a simple regression formula whose main variable is the date (day of the year) when the birch pollen levels collected are 125, with which he obtains the date of appearance of 100 grass pollen grains with a standard deviation (SD) of 5-5 days, which is an estimable clinical approximation. In most studies the appearance of other taxa [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] is applied as an independent variable or crop estimate data is used, as in the case of Friis [8] or Subiza [23]. The most practical trend is to apply meteorological data or soil data in order to obtain forecasting formulas in the process of avoiding variables which might contain errors in themselves, as used in the case of Arobba [22] who, starting from purely climatic data, achieves a good correlation of the cumulated temperature with the start date of pollination of the Urticaceae, or Emberlin [25] who does the same with Foaceae.…”