Questão 3168696

The cherry blossoms' early peak bloom

1. First, the green bud appears, sprouting from a tree branch like a fledgling peering skyward
2. from its mother’s nest. The florets show up next, extending from the branch’s center like a petal
3. unfurling to bask in the sun. This is followed by the elongation of a smattering of flower stalks,
4. from which a handful of puffy cherry blossoms finally open in a dazzling bloom. Lured by the
5. spellbinding visual and the chance to catch a whiff of the flowers’ almond-like scent, Kyoto’s
6. blooming cherry blossoms—or sakura—draw crowds from across the world. But the delicate
7. blooms appeared nearly two weeks earlier than when they used to emerge in 1850.
8. A 1,200-year record of cherry blossoms ___ (show) our current climate ___ (be) historically
9. unprecedented. Researcher Yasuyuki Aono of Osaka Metropolitan University has searched for and
10. collected cherry blossom flowering dates from diaries and chronicles written by emperors,
11. aristocrats, governors, and monks in Kyoto dating back to the 9th century. It's the longest-known
12. such data set in the world. He says data from Japan and America ___ (suggest) global shifts in
13. the dates of peak bloom season - approximately 13 days earlier on average in Kyoto and 3 days
14. in D.C. by decade.
15. That timing is one of the most valuable benchmarks for scientists tracking the impacts of
16. climate change on flowering plants. “We are now blowing by any experienced climate that we've
17. ever seen as human beings,” said Elizabeth Wolkovich, an associate professor at the University of
18. British Columbia who studies plant communities and climate change. Global warming, largely
19. driven by fossil fuel combustion, propelled temperatures so high in 2023 that it became the hottest
20. year in history, followed by the warmest January and February on record.
21. Peak bloom, or the point at which nearly two-thirds of a tree’s blossoms open, typically
22. lasts at least a week, but varies depending on weather conditions and species. Sometime between
23. the end of March and the beginning of April has historically been when the Yoshino Cherry, the
24. type of tree found throughout D.C., experiences peak bloom—but scientists believe that’s changing
25. in response to the planet’s rapidly warming temperatures.
26. Patrick Gonzalez, a climate change scientist and forest ecologist at the University of
27. California, Berkeley, says “In D.C., the advance in blooming is consistent with, but not scientifically
28. attributed to, human-caused climate change.”. This means that while scientists have detected a
29. change that is statistically different from natural variation, they haven’t yet attributed it to
30. anthropogenic climate change. Other possible causal influences include the urban heat island
31. effect, he noted. That's where the research in Kyoto is critical. The city’s sakura records go back
32. more than 1,200 years—offering up a treasure trove of historical weather data that has been
33. described as likely the longest annual record of phenology, or the study of biological life cycles,
34. anywhere on Earth.

(Available at: www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/cherry-blossom-peak-bloom-climate-change - text specially adapted for this test)

Which of the following questions is NOT answered by the article?