GLOBAL WARMING IMPACT ON CHERRY BLOSSOM FLOWERING AND ITS PHENOLOGY

Abstract

 There is tight connection between weather condition and phenology, and a lot of studies to date indicated that air temperature in particular significantly affects flowering. It has been also reported that influence by the rising air temperature likely due to the global warming is now emerged as changes in phenology in recent years. Bloom date of a cherry blossom has become earlier every year probably due to warming of surface air temperature. The empirical equations using the observed data taken from 1960s to 1990s were suggested by Aono and others, and it was revealed that averaged temperature of early spring in particular significantly influenced flowering date of the cherry blossom.

 In this paper, we confirmed that the error by the empirical equations suggested by the previous study became larger for the newer periods, because of the global warming advancement than 50-60 years ago when observation of the cherry blossom flowering began in the meteorological observatory stations. Here we modified the coefficients of the equations, so that the accuracy of the new equations was improved.