Ski areas in Europe remain exceptionally green for the time being. Although the winter started with hope, half of the French slopes are currently closed again. The French ski resort association (DSF) said this to AFP news agency earlier this week. Areas outside the Alps are particularly affected, such as in the Pyrenees, the Vosges and the Jura. Some popular areas in the Alps, such as Val Thorens and Val d’Isère, opened later than planned. In total are in the Alps 398 ski areas open and 78 closed.
Although there is rarely a really thick layer of snow in December, the situation is now dramatic, says Lander van Tricht, glaciologist-geographer (Free University of Brussels) and blogger at Snow Heights.nl. “The season started out cold, but the mild air and the rain that followed meant that what little snow there was was soon gone.” Particularly in the areas on the north side of the main ridge of the Alps, skiers will not find much snow, says Van Tricht. So, according to him, it is better to choose an Italian ski resort, where it has rained less and it has been colder. In France, Austria and Switzerland, skiing above 2,000 meters is fine, but there is hardly a flake to be seen in the valleys.
Less snow, more rain
The main cause of all this: climate change. Temperatures in the European high mountains have risen by more than two degrees over the past 150 years. In the mountains, climate warming has a self-reinforcing effect. The zero-degree limit is increasingly moving upwards, says Van Tricht. “The result is that there is less snow and more rain up to a higher altitude. The lower areas have to close the lifts because it is no longer profitable to keep them open. The season is getting shorter for them.”
With artificial snow, part of the slopes can be kept open, but in order to produce that, the temperature must be below zero. In addition, artificial snow is expensive to make and requires billions of liters of water. Even with snow cannons along the slopes, ski tourism will change considerably in the coming decades, Tricht expects. “Ski areas at two thousand and three thousand meters remain profitable, but they are becoming more expensive and busier.”
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach recently called the consequences of climate change “alarming” for winter sports. By 2050, he stated, between “50 and 60 percent of the former winter sports areas in Europe that were considered snow-sure and suitable for the Olympic Games, will no longer exist.”
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