Japan flocks to cherry blossom parties in a time of climate change

Once a year, trees across Japan fleetingly erupt with plump pink and white cherry blossoms, heralding the arrival of spring. Over the next few days, people across the country will flee the grind of factory and office for boozy picnics underfalling sakura petals in about 1,000 cherry-blossom viewing spots around the country.

The start of the season in Tokyo coincided with the end of quasi-emergency measures against Covid, but thousands of new cases are still being reported daily. Yuriko Koike, Tokyo's governor, has urged people to shun parties "and simply stroll through" parks to view the blossoms. Beneath the concern about a rebound in the virus, however, the arrival of cherry blossoms has highlighted a deeper problem: climate change.

Cherry trees are responding to warmer weather by reaching full bloom far sooner than average. Records tumbled last year: nearly half of Japan's designated observation cherry trees peaked early, breaking official records that began in 1953. In Kyoto, Japan's old capital, the peak bloom date of March 26th beat the previous record set in 1409, according to climate scientists. Blossoms in Tokyo start opening about a week earlier than half a century ago. "The rising temperature trend" is to blame, concludes the Meteorological Agency.

The same phenomenon has alarmed meteorologists in Washington, DC. Japan gifted the city's famous cherry trees from the banks of Tokyo's Arakawa River in 1912 as an act of friendship. Last year's Washington's blossoms peaked well ahead of average. Because the trees are sensitive to temperature changes – and records of hanami parties, as they are known here, go back centuries – they are useful in illuminating changes to the climate, said Yasuyuki Aono, a scientist at Osaka Prefecture University.

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Not everyone is alarmed. Wine makers have marched northwards to Hokkaido, Japan's chilly northernmost island

Many older Japanese associate peak Sakura bloom with the first day of school in April. But the blossoms in some parts of the country have vanished before school starts. Farmers around Japan report a decline in the quality of rice, the country's staple food. Some studies have predicted a steep fall in rice production as temperatures rise.

Not everyone is alarmed. Wine makers have marched northwards to Hokkaido, Japan’s chilly northernmost island. Pinot Noir vineyards have sprouted since 1998, when farmers began noticing the warmer summers. About a third of the grapes in Japan (by weight) are now grown in Hokkaido. For better or for worse, says one tourist guide, climate change is making the once unthinkable, normal.

Yet, Japan has less room for complacency than most because it is an island nation – and one of the world’s wettest. It is especially vulnerable to the warming of the oceans. The Sea of Japan is 1.7 degrees warmer than it was a century ago, which means increasingly powerful typhoons, for one thing.

Rising seas

The number of hot days of 35 degrees and higher and tropical nights with minimum temperatures of 25 degrees are on the rise. The temperature could climb by another 3.7 degrees over the next century, warns Japan's Fisheries Research and Education Agency. Much of Osaka, with 19 million residents and an economy as big as that of the Netherlands, could sink under rising seas. Low-lying areas of Greater Tokyo, a metropolis of 36 million people that sits on a plain crisscrossed with rivers, are also vulnerable.

In June 2018, Japan's parliament, the National Diet, passed the Climate Change Adaptation Act, obligating local authorities and businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Prime minister Yoshihide Suga caught many by surprise in 2020 when he said Japan would cut greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050. Many doubt whether those pledges can be achieved without a revolution in lifestyles.

For now, millions of people have shrugged off such concerns and headed to the parks. Depriving Japanese of cherry blossom parties would be like snatching hugs from Italians, said Governor Koike at the start of the pandemic. Hanami parties might relieve the stress of living with the modern plague and the threat of runaway climate change. Cherry blossoms, after all, are a symbol of the fragility of life.