Asthma misery as pollen hits Canberra early

Readings of the pollen count show it jumping in the middle of July instead of the usual hike at the beginning of August.

"The surprising thing is just how early the tree pollen started," Simon Haberle of Canberra Pollen and the ANU said.

"I think it's because we've had a quite warm winter. It all points to the changing climate that we are experiencing."

Asthma sufferers are already reporting early attacks of the debilitating condition. "It's already affecting me," Caitlin Ross said.

She normally anticipates the jump in aerial pollen and prepares for it by having medication at the ready, but this year she was taken by surprise.

"A day ago, we had a grass flare-up and I wasn't prepared for it at this time of the year. I wasn't ready and I hadn't taken enough medication. It was pretty scary," she said.

For her, a bad attack involves tightening of the airways around the nose and throat, making breathing difficult. It also prompts a headache similar to a migraine.

Another Canberran allergic to pollen said her "flu-like symptoms" came sooner that expected. "It felt like it started earlier this year," Eloise Robertson said.

Professor Haberle said that climate warming meant that "the hayfever season was probably going to get longer and stronger, particularly for the Canberra region."

There are two stages to the pollen season in Canberra. The first comes as trees release pollen, and that's already started (much earlier than usual), and the second comes later, in spring and summer, when grasses and flowers start to bloom in profusion.

The jump so far has been in pollen from trees, particularly the Cypress pine which is abundant in the ACT.

This is always the first of the bunch, followed by elms, and then alder, birch and plane trees.

Alder and birch trees are often used for landscaping in Canberra gardens, parks and streets. Their pollen comes from those tightly bunched flowers known as catkins. They help give Canberra the moniker, "the hayfever capital of Australia".

Hayfever is also known as allergic rhinitis which is when the inside of the nose gets inflamed by an allergic reaction to pollen (or dust or even the skin and hair of some animals).

Canberra Pollen reports: "According to national health surveys, allergic rhinitis rates are the highest in the ACT (Canberra), where 1 in 5 people reported suffering from long-term allergic rhinitis, followed closely by Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia. The lowest rates occur in Queensland and New South Wales, which is almost half that of Canberra.

Global warming doesn't necessarily make pollen worse. A return of drought would stunt the ability of flowers to bloom and produce the clouds of pollen.

Scientists forecast the return of El Nino, the phenomenon where different temperatures in different parts of the Pacific lead to dry weather in Australia.

A very dry season bordering on drought might not affect trees so much because they have deep roots but it could limit the growth of grass - and so of pollen from grass.

Pollen from trees isn't the only early starter this year.

Magpies hit their first victims in Canberra a month earlier than usual.

Climatologists said that average temperatures in July were more typical of spring than they were of the middle of winter, and that may have prompted the early dive-bombing.

Apart from magpies and pollen from blooming trees, other wildlife appeared earlier than usual - like the national flower, Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha).

"I believe that we are a couple of weeks ahead of time. We are getting great flowering," Suzette Searle, President of the Wattle Day Association, said a month ago.

She pointed out that wattle does not cause asthma or hayfever.