Poaceae pollen in the air depending on the thermal conditions.

Abstract

The relationship between the meteorological elements, especially the thermal conditions and the Poaceae pollen appearance in the air, were analysed as a basis to construct a useful model predicting the grass season start. Poaceae pollen concentrations were monitored in 1991–2012 in Kraków using the volumetric method. Cumulative temperature and effective cumulative temperature significantly influenced the season start in this period. The strongest correlation was seen as the sum of mean daily temperature amplitudes from April 1 to April 14, with mean daily temperature >15 °C and effective cumulative temperature >3 °C during that period. The proposed model, based on multiple regression, explained 57 % of variation of the Poaceae season starts in 1991–2010. When cumulative mean daily temperature increased by 10 °C, the season start was accelerated by 1 day. The input of the interaction between these two independent variables into the factor regression model caused the increase in goodness of model fitting. In 2011 the season started 5 days earlier in comparison with the predicted value, while in 2012 the season start was observed 2 days later compared to the predicted day. Depending on the value of mean daily temperature from March 18th to the 31st and the sum of mean daily temperature amplitudes from April 1st to the 14th, the grass pollen seasons were divided into five groups referring to the time of season start occurrence, whereby the early and moderate season starts were the most frequent in the studied period and they were especially related to mean daily temperature in the second half of March.