Warning to Cherry Blossom Travelers

 By Richard B. Primack

 

“We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live…  We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time.” Henry David Thoreau in Walden.

 

Visiting Japan for the cherry blossom festival is a life-long goal for many international travelers, due to its wonderous beauty and associated cultural activities. But the brief festival’s date shifts earlier or later depending on the weather. 

 

Photo 1: For a brief period sometime in late March or early April, people in Japan enjoy the cherry blossom festival, as shown in this photo from Tokyo.

 

Spring warming is the most important determinant of flowering times for cherry trees. And because spring weather is getting warmer due to global climate change, cherry trees are flowering ever earlier, making it harder to predict in advance when the festival will be. A traveler could arrive in Tokyo for the festival and discover that the festival had happened a week earlier.

 

Photo 2: In Kyoto, flowering cherries add to the beauty of the temples.

Cherry flowering times have been recorded across Japan for over a thousand years, making them among the best-documented examples of the biological effects of climate change in the world. Yoshino cherries, which are the most common variety of cherry trees planted in cities, are now flowering about two weeks earlier than they did 50 to 60 years ago, due to the warmer weather associated with climate change.

 

People hoping to see the cherry blossom festival in Tokyo or Kyoto need be flexible in their travel plans. Or they can always travel further north in Japan to catch a festival in a cooler city, or even catch the festival in neighboring South Korea.

 

Photo 3: The cherry blossom festival is also celebrated in South Korea. 

 

For a longer version of this article published by BBC, see: LINK