Häufigkeit von Extremereignissen beim Pollenflug

Abstract

Extreme events happen in meteorology by exceeding the long-term average of 30 years, according to the definition by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Especially important in this context are the 2 parameters wind and precipitation. Both parameters may have severe effects for men and nature. Floods of rare magnitude in the summer of 2002 in Europe - extending from the United Kingdom to Romania and Bulgaria -left hundreds dead and billions of dollars worth of damage. For the statistical analysis of the extreme values, the parametric model of the Gumbel distribution (for the maximum) was used. It is well-suited to investigate the frequency of such extreme events. This approach was therefore chosen to investigate the extreme events occurring in the case of airborne pollen. Extreme events means in this case the largest daily pollen count in each of the years of the periods studied. Extreme events of pollen are important for understanding clinical symptoms of patients with rhinitis, asthma or eczema. The study gives also a hint, how often extreme events have to be expected and how often a certain amount of either birch pollen or grass pollen might occur. Additionally, the study shows that the same concept as for the calculation of meteorological extreme events can also be applied for airborne pollen.