For now, a trip from the 66 degrees North of last week, to a more southern location: the Austrian Alps. Many of my friends in Austria have started to get very excited, because the first snow of the season has fallen and on the glaciers, the snowsports season has started. I cannot wait to get off the British dry slopes and on to the snow.
Let me introduce you to my paradise: I have the best work place in the world and
I don't want to have to miss this.. so selfish, I know.
However, even though it's early for the first snow to have fallen and many think "Ah psshh.. global warming.. nonsense", there is a reason to be concerned. For skiing to be possible, a snow layer of 30 cm is the minimum, which is currently the case in the Austrian Alps for an average of 134 days a year. (Breiling, 2003) A typical, economically viable snow season is at least 100 days, but within the next 30 years, these seasons will be shortened by one month on average.
These averages however don't say much about the individual areas. The main factor in snow cover is still temperature, and thus altitude. Higher areas will be fine, while lower ones will have to close entirely because a 50 snow-day-season doesn't bring in the necessary money. (Elsasser, 2002) As Elsasser and Bürki explain in their article: this will cause a massive tourism shift to the Alpine glaciers, an already vulnerable environment.
So a question for you: is skiing/snowboarding also a luxury, that out of sustainability concerns, we should but still don't give up?
Next post: more on Alpine winters and the snowsports industry, from an entirely different angle.
Hi Larissa, great blog! I'm not a skier, but I am a passionate runner and if global warming threatened my sport I would do everything I could to keep doing what I love. I was just wondering what you thought about snow machines, are they a viable option? I've heard many resorts use these now to lengthen the snow season and with improving technology could their environmental impact be reduced?
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel, thanks for your comment, I'm glad you understand how I feel! How interesting that you ask about snow machines, because that is the exact question I asked when I did research for my undergrad thesis.
ReplyDeleteI talked to the leader of the Mountain Resque Squad in Serfaus, Austria, who explained to me how they work. As long as temperatures allow, artificial snow machines are a partial solution by at least ensuring enough snow for the industry. However, these can only be utilized at temperatures of 1 degree Celsius with a relative humidity of <30%, and below zero at higher rates of relative humidity.
And part of climate change in these areas is the rise in temperature, which means that snow machines are only a viable option (though an expensive and unsustainable one..) to compensate for a lack of precipitation when temperatures stay below 1 degree C.