Skip to main content

The cherry blossom as an indicator of climate change

A cherry blossom is a flower of numerous trees of genus Prunus. They are also known as sakura. They usually refer to decorative, not edible cherry trees.

Wild species of the cherry tree are generally spread in the northern hemisphere. In Japan, cherries are grown for ornamental purposes, and it is recognized the national flower of Japan.

Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the cherry blossom front as it runs northward up the Japanese archipelago with the arrival of warmth via regular forecasts accompanying the weather part of a newscast TV.  

The blossoming starts in Okinawa in January and commonly reaches Tokyo and Kyoto at the end of March or April. It continues into northern territories, arriving in Hokkaido several weeks later. Japanese careful attention to these forecasts and turn out in large numbers at parks and top cherry blossom places for and picnicking under the trees and taking photos. The pastime of cherry blossom seeing even gets its word in Japanese - "hanami."

Reddit user JoshOlDorr made in python using phenology data a chart that shows the beginning of cherry blossoms in Tokyo over a time interval of more than 1,000 years.

Cherry blossom

On the chart below, the brown line is a 100-year rolling mean. The dotted line indicates the lowest centennial mean value before 1850, which dipped down in the mid-1900s. 

According to Osaka University's phenology data, the 2021 blossom season in Tokyo and Kyoto climaxed 26 March.

This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Find cities with similar climate

This map has been created using The Global environmental stratification. The Global environmental stratification (GEnS), based on statistical clustering of bioclimate data (WorldClim). GEnS, consists of 125 strata, which have been aggregated into 18 global environmental zones (labeled A to R) based on the dendrogram. Interactive map >> Via www.vividmaps.com Related posts: -  Find cities with similar climate 2050 -  How global warming will impact 6000+ cities around the world?

The Appalachian Mountains, the Scottish Highlands, and the Atlas Mounts in Africa were the same mountain range

The Central Pangean Mountains was a prominent mountain ridge in the central part of the supercontinent Pangaea that extends across the continent from northeast to southwest through the Carboniferous , Permian Triassic periods. The mountains were formed due to a collision within the supercontinents Gondwana and Laurussia during the creation of Pangaea. It was comparable to the present Himalayas at its highest peak during the start of the Permian period. It isn’t easy to assume now that once upon a time that the Scottish Highlands, The Appalachian Mountains, the Ouachita Mountain Range, and the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa are the same mountains , once connected as the Central Pangean Mountains.

Human Emotions Visualized

Despite significant diversity in the culture around the globe, humanity's DNA is 99.9 percent alike. There are some characteristics more primary and typical to the human experience than our emotions. Of course, the large spectrum of emotions we can feel can be challenging to verbalize. That's where this splendid visualization by the Junto Institute comes in. This visualization is the newest in an ongoing attempt to categorize the full range of emotions logically. Our knowledge has come a long route since William James suggested 4 primary emotions: fear, grief, love, and rage. These kernel emotions yet form much of the basis for current frameworks. The Junto Institute's visualization above classifies 6 basic emotions: fear, anger, sadness, surprise, joy, love More nuanced descriptions begin from these 6 primary emotions, such as jealousy as a subset of anger and awe-struck as a subset of surprise. As a result, there are 102 second-and third-order emotions placed on this emo