Hokkaido, Japan’s ‘Garden of the Gods’, is Warming

Context

According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), Sapporo, the main city of Japan’s second-largest island of Hokkaido, recorded 26 degrees Celsius on April 15, 2024.

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Climate Change in Hokkaido, Japan

• Earliest Summer Day: Sapporo, famous for its snow and ice sights, experienced its earliest occurrence of a temperature classified by the JMA as a ‘summer day.‘
• Loss of the Garden of the Gods: This means that Hokkaido, long considered Japan’s last wild frontier, will no longer be the ‘Garden of the Gods’ as it was known to be, by the Ainu, Japan’s indigenous people.
• Warming Archipelago: The Japanese archipelago, which stretches from the Ryukyu islands (including Okinawa) near Taiwan to Hokkaido near Russian-administered Sakhalin, is warming up.
  • An archipelago is a group of islands closely scattered in a body of water. 
  • According to a study, in Japan, the temperature increased by 1.28°C/100 years from 1898 to 2021 (JMA 2021), and the three recent years, 2019-2021, are the warmest since 1898. 

• • In urban areas, a much larger temperature rise has been observed because of the urban heat island.
• Impact: The biggest impact is being seen in Hokkaido, which borders the Sea of Okhotsk near the Russian Far East.

• Decrease in Sea Ice: A study by Hokkaido University researchers reported that sea ice “in the Sea of Okhotsk is not only dwindling in terms of coverage area, but has also lost 30 percent of its thickness across a span of 30 years.
• Impact on The Ainu: As Hokkaido warms, it will also have an impact on the Ainu, who are a marginalized people in Japan since coming into contact with ethnic Japanese (Yamato people) 400 years ago.

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Conclusion

As Japan confronts its own challenges related to a swiftly declining population, the recent temperature recorded in Sapporo serves as a stark reminder of the accelerating impact of climate change on the archipelago.