Publications by authors named "R Gehrig"
The dataset presents a 43 year-long reanalysis of pollen seasons for three major allergenic genera of trees in Europe: alder (Alnus), birch (Betula), and olive (Olea). Driven by the meteorological reanalysis ERA5, the atmospheric composition model SILAM predicted the flowering period and calculated the Europe-wide dispersion pattern of pollen for the years 1980-2022. The model applied an extended 4-dimensional variational data assimilation of in-situ observations of aerobiological networks in 34 European countries to reproduce the inter-annual variability and trends of pollen production and distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Statistical and machine learning models are commonly used to estimate spatial and temporal variability in exposure to environmental stressors, supporting epidemiological studies. We aimed to compare the performances, strengths and limitations of six different algorithms in the retrospective spatiotemporal modeling of daily birch and grass pollen concentrations at a spatial resolution of 1 km across Switzerland.
Methods: Daily birch and grass pollen concentrations were available from 14 measurement sites in Switzerland for 2000-2019.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how climate change affects pollen levels and aims to enhance pollen forecasting using advanced models like CatBoost and deep learning across 23 cities worldwide.
- The results show that cities like Mexico City and Santiago have the most accurate pollen forecasts, while Brisbane and Seoul perform poorly, highlighting key environmental factors that influence pollen concentrations.
- Understanding which environmental variables are most significant for pollen predictions can improve the accuracy of forecasts, making this research valuable for public health and environmental planning.
Article Synopsis
- A study called EPOCHAL investigated how exposure to pollen affects blood pressure in adults, focusing specifically on those with and without pollen allergies during the pollen season.
- Researchers measured blood pressure in both allergic and non-allergic individuals, taking 6253 observations, and found that higher pollen levels correlated with higher blood pressure, particularly in those with allergies.
- The study concluded that even short-term increases in pollen exposure could lead to significant rises in systolic and diastolic blood pressure for people with pollen allergies, especially among women and those with obesity.