Photo: Andreas Rasmussen//Unsplash
Images of Mount Fuji’s snowcapped peak are iconic. It’s even nestled into the background of the most recognizable piece of Japanese art, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, with a fresh layer of snow draped over its summit. The largest mountain in Japan just set a new snowfall record, however, that doesn’t bode well for the nation’s upcoming ski season. The volcano still hasn’t recorded its first new snowfall of the season and according to an 18-page report from the Tokyo Climate Center and Japan Meteorology Agency released Monday, this is now the latest into the calendar year that Mt. Fuji has gone without snow. This is technically a 130 year-old-record because the agency officially began recording data for snowfall in 1894.
According to the Japan Times, the snowcap begins to form each year on average by October 2. Snow was first recorded last year on October 5. Snow wasn’t seen at the top of the volcano in 1955 and 2016 until October 26 but now that record has been surpassed by two days and counting as of the agency’s report. The report outlines several factors that have contributed to a delay in snowfall this year but unsurprisingly, all factors ultimately point right back to climate change.
While Japan saw heavier rainfall in July than usual, the country also experienced higher temperatures in June, July, and August, and that warmth has sustained into September and now October.
“The joint research team in Advanced Studies of Climate Change Projection at Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) conducted a preliminary assessment using event attribution to evaluate the effects of global warming on these extreme events. The findings indicated that the high temperatures observed would not have occurred in the absence of global warming, which may also have contributed to the heavy rainfall events,” the report says.
As mentioned, this doesn’t bode all that well for the Japanese ski season. It may not be guaranteed that the snowpack will end up in a historical low this year but that was the case in 2016 when the previous record was set. According to Snowbrains, that season’s “snowfall at the base of Niseko United was 22.5 feet (686 centimeters), 12 feet (365 centimeters) less than average.”
