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ragweed

Climate Change, “Up Close and Personal”

Remember the good old days when you only got the “spring sniffles” for a few weeks as the new leaves began sprouting on the trees?  And doesn’t it seem like now, for some reason, you’re taking your antihistamine almost as often as you take your multi-vitamin?  That’s not your imagination; that’s climate change at work.

A USDA scientist and his collaborators have proven that ragweed pollen in some parts of the northern United States and Canada now hangs around almost a month longer than it did as recently as 1995.  The researchers’ results show those increases are correlated to seasonal warming shifts linked to climate change dynamics in the higher latitudes.