An Even Later Peak Cherry Blossom Date – How Unnatural is That?

by Adam Sandberg on March 28, 2013

in Blog, Features

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Back in early March, we wrote about how this year’s cherry blossom peak was predicted to occur a bit later than in 2012—March 26-30 instead of March 20-23. While recognizing that later peak blooms in a single year don’t prove anything either way about global warming, we still raised the question of press reaction—or rather the lack of it. Since the early peak dates in the last three years caused quite a bit of climate alarmism, the same should, theoretically, happen when the peak date is overdue.

As it turns out, the National Park Service’s newest prediction shows that this year’s peak blossom will occur even later—April 3-6—making 2013 the year with the latest cherry blossom peak bloom since 2005. But there were no headlines that screamed “Peak Blossom Delay is Worst In Eight Years!”

Washington Post reporter Jason Samenow reported about the later peak bloom on March 15. He failed to mention, however, his climate change musings in a similar article published one year ago: “D.C.’s cherry blossoms have shifted 5 days earlier: what about global warming and the future?”

In that article, Samenow wrote:

“Based on the build-up of … greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the high likelihood for additional warming in the future … there is no reason to think the shift towards earlier bloom dates will not continue.”

And in another piece that he wrote on cherry blossoms this Monday, Samenow didn’t mention his 2012 predictions either. In the most recent piece, he did call the weather “unseasonably chilly”; I wonder if zipping up his jacket made him forget about his past articles.

This year’s cold March, and the later peak bloom prediction, doesn’t necessarily mean that Samenow should now warn readers about global cooling. But shouldn’t he at least admit to readers that this season is running counter to his predictions? After all, that is the cold (or at least unseasonably chilly) truth.

john639 March 31, 2013 at 6:18 pm

Even with climate change, it still gets cold sometimes. But hot days are happening more often. http://clmtr.lt/cb/qCQ

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