Snowboarding over the Christmas holidays is no longer guaranteed – even with a snowball – Watts Up With That?

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A peer-reviewed publication

UNIVERSITY BASEL

For many people, holidays in the snow are just as much a part of the end of the year as Christmas trees and fireworks. However, as global warming progresses, white slopes are becoming increasingly rare. Researchers at the University of Basel have calculated how reliably one of Switzerland’s largest ski resorts will maintain snow with engineering snow-making technology by 2100 and the amount of water it snows. This will consume.

The future for ski sports in Switzerland is nothing but pink – or rather, white. Current climate models predict that there will be more winter rain in the coming decades, but it will fall as rain rather than snow. Even so, an investor recently spent several million Swiss francs expanding the Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis ski resort. A short-sighted decision they will regret in the future?

A research team led by Dr Erika Hiltbrunner from the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel calculated the extent to which this ski resort can sustain economically important Christmas breaks and a ski season lasts at least 100 days with and without snowfall. . The team collected data on aspects of the slopes, where and when snow is generated at the ski resort, and how much water is available. They then applied the latest climate change scenarios (CH2018) in combination with SkiSim 2.0 simulation software to predict snow conditions with and without snowmaking techniques. The results of their investigation were recently published in the journal International Journal of Biometeorology.

There is no guarantee of a white Christmas

As a result, the use of engineered snow can actually guarantee a 100-day ski season – at least in the higher parts of the ski resort (at 1,800 meters and above). But business is likely to struggle over the Christmas holidays in the coming decades, with the weather often not cold enough at this time and in the weeks before. In the event that greenhouse gas emissions do not decline, the Sedrun region in particular will no longer be able to provide guaranteed Christmas snow for a longer period of time. The new snow gun may alleviate the situation to a certain extent, but will not solve the problem completely, the researchers say.

“Many people don’t realize that you also need certain weather conditions to make snow,” Hiltbrunner explains. “It must not be too warm or too humid, or there will not be enough evaporative cooling for the ejected water to freeze in the air and fall as snow.” Warm air absorbs more moisture, and so as winter gets warmer, it also becomes technically more difficult or impossible to make snow. In other words: “Here, the laws of physics place clear limits on snowmaking.”

540 million liters

However, skiing will continue because snowmaking technology will at least allow resort operators to maintain higher skiing for 100 consecutive days – even until the end of the century and with climate change continuing unabated. But there is a high price to pay for this. The researchers’ calculations show that the amount of water consumed to create snow will increase significantly, about 80% for the entire resort. In an average winter by the end of this century, consumption will amount to about 540 million liters of water, compared with 300 million liters today.

However, the researchers emphasize that the increase in water demand is still relatively moderate compared with other ski resorts. For example, previous studies have shown that water consumption for snow generation in the Scuol ski resort will increase by a factor of 2.4 to 5, because the amount of snow covered there will have to be Largely extended to ensure snow reliability.

For their analysis, the researchers looked at a period of 30 years. However, there are large annual fluctuations: In addition, extreme events are not described in climate scenarios. During the winter of 2017 with low snowfall, water consumption for snowmaking in one of the three sub-regions of Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis tripled.

Disputes over water use

Today, some of the water used for snowmaking in the largest sub-region of Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis comes from the Oberalpsee. Up to 200 million liters can be recovered annually for this purpose. If climate change continues unabated, this water source will last until the middle of the century, at which point new sources will have to be exploited. Dr Maria Vorkauf, lead author of the study, who is currently working at the Agroscope research station, said: “Oberalpsee is also used to produce hydroelectricity. “Here, we can see a conflict between the water demand for the ski resort and the water demand for hydroelectricity.”

At first, this ski resort may even benefit from climate change – if the smaller and lower ski resorts are forced to close, tourists will move to the larger resorts. than at higher altitudes, one of which is Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis.

What is certain is that more snowfall will increase the cost and therefore also the price of ski holidays. “Sooner or later, middle-income people will no longer be able to afford them,” says Hiltbrunner.

JOURNAL

International Journal of Biometeorology

DOI

10.1007/s00484-022-02394-z