103 Global News Post 3

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/03/23/national/cherry-blossom-forecasting/

This article was written by Thu-Huong Ha, a culture critic at the Japan Times, just three days ago on March 23, 2023. The article focuses on the importance of sakura trees, or cherry blossoms, to both Japanese culture and economy, but global warming is making it more difficult to predict when these trees will bloom, if they even bloom in the first place. This year specifically, the trees were predicted to bloom on either March 15th or 16th by two different forecasting services, but they actually ended up blooming on March 14th- one of the few earliest dates since the 1950s. The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) “uses 58 preselected example trees spread across the country” to base their forecasts off of (Thu-Huong Ha). Not all forecasters use the same sample trees however- the Tokyo forecast utilizes only one cherry blossom tree. Once a tree has 5-6 flowers opened, it can be announced as blossoming, and once 80% of the tree has open flowers, it can be announced as being in full-bloom. Hiroki Ito, a meteorologist in the content making department at Japan Meteorological Corp, says that flowering is getting harder to predict as warmer winters make it harder for predictions to be accurate, especially because the models that get the data for forecasting are extremely dependent on temperature. Thu-Huong Ha says that “climate change doesn’t just mean earlier blossoms” and that a study conducted in 2009 at one of the warmest islands in Japan, Kyushu, found that “a temperature rise of 2 to 3 degrees celsius by 2100 would mean that the region will have trees that only partly blossom-or not at all.” And this is because the coldness of winter signals the trees to wake up from their dormancy so they’re able to bloom in the spring, but with winters not being cold enough, it’s possible for no bloom. This article uses a lot of evidence from the main forecasters in Japan that collect and analyze data and/or predict when the blossoms will bloom, which allows for us to see (1) how much actual work and dedication goes into working in this business and (2) how global warming poses an incredibly serious threat to Japan’s cherry blossoms. The perspectives shared in this article are pro-climate change, but there are graphs to support these claims that urban warming or has severely affected when these cherry blossoms are blooming- as pictures below:

Ha, Thu-Huong. (2023). Human Influence on Kyoto Blossoming [graph]. The Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/03/23/national/cherry-blossom-forecasting/