Artificial Snow

Hello guys, from beautiful Austria and the snow this time,

After last week's rant, a very brief post today. I want to touch upon the topic of artificial snow, as there's hardly any 'natural' snow over here right now, but still we're able to continue snowboarding.  Seems wasteful and wrong, doesn't it? But also practical, right? Let's have a look.

A typical snow canon. (Source)

The minimum temperature for artificial snow machines is -1 C, so the snow canons can be used almost every night (Teich et al., 2007). However, this has a significant environmental impact and clear pro's and cons. Here's the list!

PRO:

- Securing the snowsports tourism during lack of snow
- Protection of the upper soil layer from ski edges and piste bullies (Mayer et al., 2007)
- Protection of the soil and plants from extreme temperature differences

CON:

- Loudness
- High energy- and water use
- Decline of vegetation diversity due to longer snow cover in May/April

This also leads to high costs: artificial snow for one hectare (100m x 100m) of ground costs 6000 euros per winter (Snowboard Teacher Skript TSLV), which - among other factors - also makes snowsports tourism so expensive. But the pro's outweigh the cons, according to the Tiroleans.

Having to use these snow canons has become more common over the past 40 years. My course convenor today blamed it on climate change. But whether that's explicitly the case is a whole other discussion...