Cherry Blossoms Blooming Early From Tokyo to Washington
March 20 2024 | San Clemente California .......... Per Bloomberg News, Iconic cherry trees in Japan and the US are blossoming earlier as climate change brings warmer temperatures, upending a fixture of the spring calendar in major cities.
No country is more associated with blossoming cherry trees, or sakura, than Japan, and tourists from overseas often try to time their visits to see the delicate pink petals. The average date at which they start to bloom has moved up 1.2 days per decade since 1953, said Daisuke Sasano, a climate risk management officer at the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Between 1961 and 1990, cherry trees in Tokyo started blooming on March 29 on average. Between 1991 and 2020 that date moved up to March 24, Sasano said........... Last year, the sakura in Tokyo were the first to bloom in all of Japan, on March 14. That was unusual, since they typically bloom first in the southern part of the country and later in the north along what the JMA calls the “cherry blossom front.” “Spring is most definitely starting earlier than when you were a kid — there is no doubt about that,” said Crimmins, who is also an associate professor in phenology at the University of Arizona. “Many, many studies show clear trends toward warmer temperatures and earlier starts to springtime activity over the longer term.” //////////
Sakura flowers are greeted with much excitement in Japan. People gather in groups to have picnics, a centuries-old custom known as hanami. A study by an academic at Kansai University estimated the economic impact of the flowers last year to be 616 billion yen ($4.1 billion)........... Thousands of miles from Tokyo, in Washington, DC, nearly 4,000 cherry trees — the oldest of them gifted by Japan and planted in the US capital in 1912 — are also a major tourist attraction. For roughly a month each spring the city holds the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which is “an economic engine,” the DC Chamber of Commerce said in an email. Each year, the festival draws an estimated 1.5 million people from across the globe and generates more than $100 million in visitor spending.
Bloomberg News
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