No one is mentioning calendars, and that calendars haven't been consistent enough for 1200 years to make the claim being made in the article. Here are a couple of articles I found that show that the claim of knowing that this year's cherry blossom is "one day earlier" than one in the 1400s is pretty difficult, if not impossible, to substantiate.<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070402230356/http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/calendar.htm" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20070402230356/http://www2.gol.c...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar</a>
It's interesting that in the chart we even see an expected peak around 1600-1700 that correspond to the Little Ice Age period <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age</a> (colder weather = late cherry blossom season)
They talk about a wild prunus Prunus jamasakura. I didn't knew the species, seems okay<p>But what most gardeners today are culturing is not so much Prunus jamasakura as Prunus serrulata, that are complex hybrids from several cherry species.<p>This mean that any comparison with USA data would be useless for example.<p>When an hybrid or lots of hybrids arose, contamination and eventually replacement of the pure species is expected. In a few centures the species change or even are replaced by the hybrids. (For example, finding a wild pure-blood japanese Chaenomeles currently is mission impossible). So my first question would be, how they managed that problem?<p>Are they registering a mix of several hybrids, that moves the average up or down because some in particular are trendy or forgotten?<p>Could be that and explanation to the final part of the curve?<p>A similar plot could made us conclude (wrongly) that the corn is getting much bigger in the last 1000 years "by climate change", instead because people selected more modern varieties of corn.<p>Just an neutral opinion.
For whatever reason, fruit trees are really ascetically pleasing. I suspect because humans have been selectively breeding them for so long. Interesting bark, flowers, leaves, and colourful tasty fruit. I think they are remarkable achievements of human innovation. Cherry blossom trees no longer produce edible size cherries just flowers. But I noticed how much longer cherry blossoms last on the West coast, which I believe is due to longer cooler summers.
When a tree blossoms is due to its temperature <i>and</i> the amount of light its "seeing". Tree genetics is also a factor. Couldn't this early blooming trend be due to the huge increase in night illumination? I've certainly see tree's bloom time screwed up when they grow near/under strong night lighting.
I would like to see the cluster of locations they said Hiroshima was the location for the early bloom this season.<p>I don't imagine the early records had every city in the country. Maybe the main two cities. Sample variance would increase over time.<p>Also what us the age of these trees given the history of Hiroshima.<p>The source paper states urbanisation in the title, but its not mentioned in the BBC article.<p>Also the trend reversal happened around 1800 which is well before most people talk about the human effects of industry.
I do not understand the data in this article.<p>Do all these trees bloom in unison? The scattered data seems to suggest there is variance between individual trees?<p>If there is variance, then how is decided what the start of spring is and at what point the tree as a collective species blooms?
The chart shows a trend over the last few centuries towards earlier blossoming, but it definitely precedes Co2 levels and actual temperature changes. Which is interesting.
Obviously. It will continue to break that record for the rest of the century. We have unchecked global warming.<p>For example, this article about it from just 4 years ago shows an obvious trend: <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/04/07/japans-cherry-blossoms-are-emerging-increasingly-early" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/04/07/japans-c...</a>. This year's peak is just below the bottom of the chart (March 26) in the Economist article. The Osaka University chart in the linked BBC article shows just how abrupt and accelerating the trend is in the last 150 or so years, and real changes in the last 10.<p>We are all in real trouble.<p>edit: whoever you are can brigade and flag my posts, but it won't change anything.
If you didn't read the article, the headline could be misunderstood: records have been kept since 812, and the previous record was in 1409.<p>As an aside, it's pretty incredible to have 1200 years of data for this.
The updated headline “Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since 1409'” does not match the article headline nor the article content. The previous headline on HN “Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since 812'” matches both article headline and content.<p>Until this year, the earliest peak was in 1409, but this year is not only the earliest peak since then, but the earliest peak ever recorded since 812.
At first I thought there was a typo and the article meant 1812. But no. They really mean 812.<p>As someone in their late 20s, I don’t see how the future of Earth in another half-century is anything but bleak.
It astounds me how people who are otherwise intelligent and who understand the scientific method don't believe in anthropogenic climate change. It doesn't fill me with a lot of hope for the future, since we can't begin to work on this problem at the scale we need if so many of us don't think there even is a problem to begin with.