Sorry, ABC News, the early cherry blossom blossoms were caused by urban heat islands rather than climate change-Watt?

From the climateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

ABC News held a story this week that covered the early blooms of cherry trees in Washington, D.C., attributed early blooms to climate change. This is wrong. Although cherry blossom blossoms have arrived earlier in recent years, the reason is the increase in the population of DC, and development has led to local thermal bias in the urban heat island (UHI) effect, resulting in less late freezing and higher average night temperatures in the region. The same is true in Tokyo.

Reporter in the ABC News Project “Sakura is in full bloom due to climate change,” Washington’s iconic cherry blossoms are approaching the peaks and are happening due to enhanced climate change by humans. “This change, while not disastrous, is destroying travel to appreciate the blooming, leading travelers to the blooming yearly so that earlier holidays must be planned every year.

There have been similar stories over the past decade or so, including in the 2023 Washington Post where the BBC described a similar situation in Tokyo in 2024.

Cherry blossoms may indeed have peaked in bloom in recent years than they have been a few days ago in the past few decades, but if so, population growth and associated UHI effects should be attributed to increased global average temperatures. The UHI effect is a good phenomenon in which as a site experiences population growth and densification, developments related to artificial heat sources such as concrete, asphalt, buildings, engines, engines, furnaces, boilers, boilers and space regulator exhausters. These heat sources absorb sunlight and heat during the day and are only released slowly at night, which tends to increase the average temperature at night, thus biasing towards the overall average temperature at any location that is so affected.

About Tokyo Climate RealismEven though Tokyo's just average annual temperature has dropped since 1997, the effects of the UHI effect have been artificially increasing the average temperature by 5.4°F, much higher than the average rise across the island nation. This bias can lead to nightly lows in early spring, leading to early blooming.

The study published in a peer-reviewed journal Geophysical research letter and environmental pollution explain that in metropolitan areas, the UHI effect may change the date of blooming to days, days, compared to trees and flowering plants in nearby rural areas.

Another peer-reviewed study was published in the Journal climate The study specifically discusses the UHI signature Washington, D.C. below, and the following figure shows the UHI signature map of Washington, D.C. in the morning, afternoon and evening.

The picture above shows that UHI ruled the core of downtown, with cherry trees in Washington, D.C. located in the tidal basin. So it’s no surprise that the cherry trees react and bloom as UHI signatures grow over time.

The increase in measured temperature rises in Washington, D.C. is larger than the national average, mainly due to population growth and UHI over the past century. Since 1950, the population of Washington, D.C. has grown by more than 331%, which is related to massive development. The National Park Service has been tracking cherry blossom-like peaks since the early 1920s, and its data shows on the Environmental Protection Agency's website that the annual peak Bloom changed earlier as the population grew. (Please refer to the picture below)

ABC News Research and data strongly suggesting that UHI is fully responsible for, which is entirely responsible for spring cherry blossoms due to fewer late frosts and higher average night temperatures. But, of course, this is consistent with the mainstream media’s narrative about climate change driving force, which leads to everything being bad. The facts may not support this, but the facts don't inspire a fascinating news story, and that's what ABC and other media seem to really care about – attracting public interest, attention, clicks and advertising sales, rather than reporting the truth.

H. Sterling Burnett

Dr. H. Sterling Burnett is the director of the Arthur B. Robinson Centre for Climate and Environmental Policy and the Executive Editor of Environmental and Climate News. In addition to the Arthur B. Robinson Center, which directs the Heartland Institute’s Climate and Environmental Policy Center, Burnett puts Environment and Climate News together, editor of Heartland’s Climate Change weekly emails and hosts the Environmental and Climate News.

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