Tree (oak and Birch) Season and Climate Change in the Continental United States (conus) from 2000 to 2050

CC is expected to alter of Quercus (Oak) and Betula (Birch) pollination and potentially increase occurrence of allergic airway disease. Spatiotemporal patterns of Oak and Birch pollen seasons (OAPS) in multiple climate regions, and their relationships with the CC in the CONUS changing over time were examined from the year 2000 to 2050. A modeling system incorporating a meteorology model (WRF), a pollutant emission model (SMOKE), a pollen emission model and an air quality model (CMAQ) simulating the spatiotemporal distributions of pollen and anthropogenic air pollutants. This WRF-SMOKE-CMAQ-Pollen model was applied to a the CONUS during the periods of 2001-2004 and 2047-2050 to investigate the CC impact on OAPS for different regions (South-S, Southeast-SE, Southwest-SW, Central-C, West-W, Northeast-NE, Eastnorthcentral-ENC, Westnorthcentral-WNC and Northwest-NW). [OAK]: The mean and maximum hourly concentrations increased in the NW, NE, W & SW. NE mean concentration increased 57%; started earlier (NW, NE, W, SE) with shorter length of seasons in 6/9 climate regions with 7/9 climate regions exceeding the allergy-threshold (ranging 2.3% in S, to 31.7% in NW). [BIRCH] The mean and maximum hourly concentrations decreased in the majority of climate regions during 2047-2050; started earlier in the NW, NE, W; while season length was shortened in 8/9 climate regions with exceedance hours predicted to increase in the N, WNC, NE. CC impacted OAPS in different climate regions with minor pollen concentrations increases approaching 2050 while the number of hours in which pollen concentrations exceed the threshold values increased in the majority of climate regions.