2021-04-13

Each year, the emergence of cherry blossoms heralds the arrival of spring.  Certain parts of the world are particularly famous for their displays of these pink beauties, including Japan and the eastern United States.

This year, the cherry trees began blooming unusually early.  In fact, their peak in Japan occurred earlier than in any other year in the past 1,200 years.  In the city of Kyoto, records of the timing of the cherry blossoms have been kept since 812 AD.  Yasuyuki Aono, a scientist at Osaka Perfecture University, has been studying these records.  He says that the peak of the cherry tree blooms had been around the middle of April for hundreds of years.  But since the 1800s, their blossoming has been shifting earlier and earlier.  This year’s peak date for blossoms in Kyoto was March 26, and in Tokyo, it was March 22.  Such early flowering had occurred only a few times in history, according to Aono’s research.

So what caused this early blossoming of cherry trees?  Scientists report that the uncommonly cold winter, followed by the relatively early start of a very warm spring was the perfect recipe for the trees’ early bloom. Moreover, the trend of an earlier and earlier flowering is shown by the extensive records of cherry blossoms in Japan.  Scientists attribute this shift to the warming climate.  They fear that it will not just affect the timing of cultural events connected to the blossoming trees or the tourists who try to plan their trips to view the cherry trees at their peak.  The trees’ early blooming represents a global problem caused by climate change that is changing the growing patterns of plants and the behaviors of animals and throwing off crucial balances in the ecosystems that will likely lead to mass extinctions.  Here’s why.  Many flowering plants depend on insects to pollinate them.  At the same time, insects depend on plants for food.  If plants flower early, and insects are not yet at the right stage in their development to feed on them, those plants will not be pollinated and insects won’t find the food they need when they reach maturity.  If plant and insect life cycles are no longer in sync, the result could be the dying out of both plants and insects, which will affect other animals all the way up the food chain.

Not only in Japan did the cherry blossoms make an early appearance.  The same was observed among the trees that famously grace the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.  The National Park Service reported that the peak of the trees’ bloom was about a week earlier than normal.