Latest Climate Change Fear-Mongering: Warming Extends Allergy Season

Like my father before me mid-April not only brings tax day, but it's the season for sneezing. Because of my Hay Fever some time after I leave the house each morning the sneezes start--not once, not twice but somewhere between seven and fourteen times in a row, embarrassing me in front of my neighbors and when I commute the other passengers on the LIRR who are desperately trying to get a few last moments of sleep before the train reaches Manhattan.

Now thanks to a fact-challenged report from the Courier, a newspaper in Australia, I learn the global warming enthusiasts are predicting a longer hay fever season. A claim that is easily rebuked.

According to the Courier article:

HAYFEVER has hit Ballarat earlier this year, with experts agreeing a longer allergy season could be due to climate change.

Nick Schultz, from Federation University’s school of applied and biomedical sciences, said allergy seasons were setting in earlier and lasting longer due to warmer weather patterns.

“Higher temperatures mean some plants will have higher protein counts, which ultimately means the levels of protein on each piece of pollen is greater,” said Dr Schultz, who is also a trained botanist. “And it is this protein which causes the allergic reaction.”

FYI for those of you who don't suffer from Hay Fever, pollen happens to be one of the things that that set off my sneeze-o-ramas.

Referring to plant phenology, which is the timing of what happens inside a plant, Dr Schultz said pollen was now being released earlier in some plants due to warmer temperatures.

“And obviously this results in a longer allergy season,” he said.

Janet Rimmer, a respiratory physician and allergist, has also researched the link between climate change and allergies.

“Global warming is likely to cause an increase in the abundance of tropical and subtropical grasses as they will be able to grow further south,” Dr Rimmer wrote in Medicine Today.

“Additional effects of global warming may include earlier seasons, higher pollen loads and possibly more allergenic pollen.”

If you read through the statements offered by as proof by the reporters not one was made by anyone in the climate or related scientists. Each of the MDs and Biologists above begin with the assumption that global warming is a proven fact rather than the unproven hypothesis it is.

Also noticeable is that some of the doctors hedge their bets with statements such as "Global warming is likely" and "global warming may." Meaning they aren't too sure about their claims either.

A scientific fact that baffles even the most hardline of global warming enthusiasts is the Earth hasn't warmed in over18 years. Which applied to this latest Hay Fever claim means, among other things that if the allergy season were to get longer...it would have happened by Sept/Oct 1996 which is the last time Earth temperatures warmed.

Some may disagree, they could say those are Earth-wide averages, couldn't it be warming in Australia and not elsewhere? Absolutely! In fact Australia's warmest years ever were in the 1870s. After a peak in 1878 the there was a cooling trend down under, while lasted until about 1950.  At the same time the United States was trending the opposite way.

Steven Goddard, who runs Real Science, one of the world's top sites about climate science (and one I read everyday) explained via email the Earth is like a Weeble (it wobbles but doesn't fall down):

One cause is the eccentricity (asymmetry) of earth's orbit. The southern hemisphere currently has,intense summers - because earth is closest to the sun during the southern hemisphere summer (January). The northern hemisphere is opposite, with cool summers. These patterns change over time due to gravitational pull of other planets, and wobble of the Earth's axis.

As for what is happening to Australia today is it warming down under. Thankfully,  Steve also has that answer. Probably not--- Maximum temperatures are on a long-term decline in Australia...

...But the absolute temperatures are increasing. This is because they have been progressively adding hotter stations to the thermometer record [in other words they are cheating]

In other words, my massive sneezing fits are not going to get worse because it is not getting warmer her in NY and thankfully I will also be OK if I move to Australia. If allergy season is getting longer in the land of Crocodile Dundee and Olivia Newton-John it's not because of global warming.