The Guardian view on Japan’s cherry blossom: when spring slips out of time | Editorial

A 1,200-year dataset shows the ‘peak bloom’ is arriving earlier. Global heating is unsettling nature’s rhythms – and their cultural meaning A picture posted on social media last April by Prof Yasuyuki Aono of a spreadsheet, with its blank row for 2026, carries a quiet poignancy. Prof Aono died before he got to fill in this year’s entry for when the cherry blossom fully bloomed in Kyoto. The academic had spent decades reconstructing dates of flowering that go back to the ninth century. His wor...

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