In Japan, they have been keeping track of the peak bloom date of their beautiful cherry blossoms for over 1,200 years. This year, they bloomed earlier than ever before, beating out the old record set in 1409 by a day. After holding steady for the first thousand years of the record, the date of the peak bloom has been getting earlier and earlier since 1800. Scientists attribute this to the warming of the globe due to increased greenhouse gases. You can read more about how they measure peak bloom and what the trend is over time at Newser here.
