The reduction in snow cover due to climate change is making life difficult for ski areas in Europe. This is leading to a dramatic drop in the number of days you can go skiing. As a result, ski resorts increasingly have to resort to snow production.
Although the research groups at Joanneum Research and the French Institute of Agriculture, Food and Environment emphasize that snow forecasts are based on simplified assumptions and therefore their results should not be considered definitive, they would nevertheless offer opportunities for assess the impact of climate change that the ski tourism industry should better take into account.
2,234 observed European ski resorts
2,234 ski areas from 28 European countries were analyzed and the potential and effects of artificial snow were also observed. The study shows that almost all ski areas will be affected if the temperature rises by four degrees Celsius.
Scientists have determined that more than half of Europe’s ski resorts will be exposed to a “very high risk” of insufficient snow supply in the event of global warming of two degrees Celsius. According to Franz Prettenthaler of Joanneum Research in Graz, it is no longer possible to think of cheap skiing without snow in 99 percent of ski areas.
Graphics: APA/ORF; Source: Uni Grenoble/Joanneum Research
“You can see that snow production is necessary in any case and that global warming needs to be stopped. Because beyond two degrees, the ski tourism business model will no longer be possible, even with intensive snow production,” says Prettenthaler.
Snow production is not a permanent solution
If half the area of the ski areas can be covered with snow, the risk of little snow is reduced, but it is still very high, according to Prettenthaler. The researcher from Graz assumes that snow production will therefore be profitable for a long time, but it is still up for debate whether this will also make sense from an ecological point of view for that long.
It also sees the first casualties of climate change to date, as many small snowless ski areas have already ceased operations. “Austria started snowing relatively early and managed to save some ski areas,” says Prettenthaler.