Grenoble If more and more attempts are made to keep ski tourism afloat with the help of artificial snow production, this will increase water and energy needs and therefore carbon emissions – and thus further accelerate the climate crisis .
In addition, snow can only be produced at sufficiently low temperatures. It is therefore necessary to reconsider whether it really makes sense to maintain the high dependence on winter tourism in certain regions, write scientists led by Samuel Morin from the Center National de Recherches Météorologiques de Grenoble.
According to this, Europe is the most important place for skiing: around half of all ski areas in the world are located here and more than 80 percent of ski areas, each with more than a million users per year.
German alpine ski areas could soon be snow-free
The study considers the situation of 2,234 such areas in Europe with a warming of up to four degrees. According to the modelling, at four degrees virtually all ski areas would have a very high risk of poor snow conditions, although there are large regional differences. Without exception, all ski areas in the German Alps would be snowless at three degrees without artificial snow.
According to the analysis, if the temperature increase were limited to 1.5 degrees, around a third (32 percent) of Europe’s ski areas would be at serious risk. This proportion can be limited to 14 to 26 percent through snow production, ie the use of snow machines. However, many climate experts now assume that a limit of 1.5 degrees would hardly be achievable, even with immediate major efforts.
The study is associated with limitations and simplifications, for detailed local results additional data would have to be included, according to the researchers, for example on the location, characteristics of the snow production systems used and the availability of water and energy sources. Local considerations for the future of ski tourism would also have to include other parameters – such as the behavior of skiers. For some tourists, an artificial snow slope surrounded by greenery is more deterrent than attractive.
Furthermore, it is questionable whether CO2-intensive tourist activities, such as ski tourism in its current form, are compatible with the far-reaching measures needed to limit global warming to less than two degrees. Even if a significant part of Europe’s ski resorts could still offer ski tourism for a long period, it would be a great challenge for destinations to make the necessary contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Commenting on the study, Paul Peeters, from the University of Applied Sciences in Breda (Netherlands), writes that the size and number of European ski resorts are expected to decrease as a result of decreasing snow cover in most mountain areas. Switching to other forms of tourism could make more sense for many affected mountain regions, both economically and ecologically.