Japan sees earliest cherry blossom season in 1200 years The Weather Network - Japan sees earliest cherry blossom season in 1,200 years
The article says that this has happened and what they believe is the cause, but what about the effect !!? I would be very interested to hear the scientific members of the forum' s opinions. Hope it starts some good conversation Margot.
Thanks, Margot. The only trees we pay such close attention to are the Burrard Station 'Akebono' trees, and it's definitely not the earliest year for those. I was trying to go through @eteinindia (Mariko's) postings, because I thought I remembered some years that she said were very early, but after she explained that some stats were for the date of the first five flowers, it seemed that I was going to be getting confused about what I was reading and I gave up.
I wonder if the stats have been manipulated to create a scare story on climate change. It happens all too often these days. Your figures Wendy seem quite conclusive. Definatly not the earliest even this century.
Here's the plot of 'Yoshino' cherry dates at Kyoto from the BBC website. What's really interesting is that while the earliest dates haven't changed a lot - the new record is only a day earlier than the previous record set in 1409 - the late dates have completely gone in the last few decades. Nothing after 10 April in the last 10-15 years; nothing after 20 April in the last 30-40 years. Source: BBC (don't know if you'll be able to see it in Canada, may be limited to UK viewing)
I'm sure it can be viewed worldwide. The warming begins roughly at the beginning of the industrial revolution...
