tokyo japans famous cherry blossoms have reached their flowery peak in many places earlier this year than at any time since formal records started being kept nearly 70 years ago with experts stating climate change as the likely causejapans favorite flower called sakura used to reach their peak bloom in april just as the country celebrates the start of its new school and business year yet that date has been creeping earlier and now most years the blossoms are largely gone before the first day of schooljapans favorite flower saturathis year peak bloom was reached on march 26 in the ancient capital of kyoto the earliest since the japan meteorological agency jma started collecting the data in 1953 and 10 days ahead of the 30year average similar records were set this year in more than a dozen cities across japansome say it is the earliest peak bloom ever based on records from historic documents diaries and poetry books from kyoto osaka prefecture university environmental scientist yasuyuki aono who tracks such documents said the earliest blooms he has found before this year were on march 27 in the years 1612 1409 and 1236 though there are not records for some yearswe can say its most likely because of the impact of the global warming said shunji anbe an official at the observations division at the jmathe agency tracks 58 benchmark cherry trees across the country and this year 40 of those already have reached their peak bloom and 14 have done so in record time the trees normally bloom for about two weeks each year from first bud to all the blossoms falling offcherry trees are sensitive to temperature changes and the timing of their blooming can provide valuable data for climate change studies anbe saidaccording to the agency data the average temperature for march in kyoto has climbed to 106 degrees celsius in 2020 from 86 c in 1953 so far this years average march temperature in japan has been 124 csakura have deeply influenced japanese culture for centuries and regularly been used in poetry and literature with their fragility seen as a symbol of life death and rebirth