Kyoto cherry blossoms now bloom earlier than at any point in 1,200 years

binarymax

We have a cherry blossom tree. It bloomed a week earlier than last year. We’re not in Kyoto but I did notice and it’s a bit strange. I also noticed some other blossoming trees that typically bloom for about a week, went green after 3 days.

cf100clunk

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47721771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47811668

lysace

So it's a reformatted version of: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/date-of-the-peak-cherry-t...

Sparkyte

Trees often bloom based on the surrounding climate and conidtions. Warmer bursts in early spring lead to early blossoms.

carabiner

Many factors in this. Heat islands from urbanization in Kyoto, different species bred for earlier blooming, etc.

LightBug1

Really disappointing first parse of the comments. My average comment quality is pretty terrible, but these are on par.

yeah879846

Now this is climate science I can get behind.

childofhedgehog

I had visited to see the cherry blossoms in 2017 and felt that we were going too early but actually made it for the peak. It’s scary how quickly the dates are shifting. I wonder what impact the earlier blooms have on the trees over the coming years, as this does not seem to be natural.

morkalork

A dataset curated by humans, spanning over a thousand years, is awe inspiring on its own. The first person to record their observation must have had no idea what they started. Are there others like this?

linuxftw

It's entirely possible that modern horticultural techniques are resulting in the trees going dormant earlier, accumulating the required chill hours, and then breaking dormancy earlier. It's quite likely that the care of the trees has changed substantially from 1900 onward.

jpgvm

Don't worry though guys, climate change isn't real. /s 1200 years is a serious timescale, I think humans generally struggle reasoning about long durations or very vast distances. Which leads to them instead postulating how all these other more present, more recent and nearer things can be to blame when what you really need to do is zoom out (in space and/or time).

1234letshaveatw

My fruit trees bloomed later this year. It has been a cold spring in my corner of the Midwest, colder on average and we are dropping below freezing the next few nights :(

gla67890543

Global warming or global climate change? No mainstream media is talking about it now.

Havoc

It’s because things are going great, right? Right?

htrp

>Latest peak ever May 4 year 1323 What would have happened to cause that late of a bloom?

ars

This title is not true, they are blooming earlier than the earliest average . The nature of an average is that it smooths out peaks.

chewz

1200 years ago Kyoto was a small village. Not it is 3 million city with lots of concrete and asphalt. Cities are usually hot spots unlike small villages. So what have changed?