Analysis of air pollen monitoring results in Perm and determination of main directions of pollen grain transfer

Abstract

This paper considers the atmospheric transport of pollen grains of 15 allergenic plant species. An analysis of monitoring results reveals that the most significant numbers of pollen grains refer to birch, nettle, pine, and poplar. Seasonal changes in the numbers of pollen grains have shown that the pollen of elm, blooming in April, is brought from neighboring regions. In May, the main amounts of the bioaerosol are given by birch, maple, spruce, pine, poplar, oak, and hazel. In the period from June to August, the sources of pollen emissions are cereals, nettles, wormwood, sorrel, and plantain. A good quantitative relationship has been revealed between the contents of pollen grains of plantain and sorrel; cereals and wormwood; cereals and nettles; hazel and plantain. A significant, but less close negative relationship has been found between the numbers of pollen grains of poplar and maple. To account for the wind direction accompanying the transfer of the bioaerosol, daily radio sensing data for the period from April to August, 2010 to 2019, are used. As the main direction of transfer, the level of 925 hPa is chosen, which corresponds to heights from 500 to 900 m. These grouped data allow us to obtain "wind rose" diagrams combined with relative numbers of pollen grains of different species. An analysis of the thus obtained diagrams shows that in some years the highest concentration of birch pollen grains in May may not correspond to the prevailing direction of the main transport, which may be due to the influence of less distant emission sources.