Media Doom & Gloom on Skiing vs. Reality

jimk

Active member
Thanks for the beautiful photos. It's nice to see a first hand report of good times in the Alps this winter. This Washington Post article from Jan 12, 2023 is all doom and gloom. It is behind a paywall: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/12/skiing-climate-change-alps-snow/
The gist of it is that there is an existential crisis in the Alps and that global warming is bringing an end to winter sports as we know them. The end is not only near, it's overdue. Recreation in the Alps should be reinvented to non-ski activities with a lower carbon footprint. Bah humbug.
 
Typical mainstream media crap. It's basic physics that a 1C temperature rise raises the rain/snow line about 500 feet. But of course there's distribution of storms around that average rain/snow line. An outlier storm like the one before Christmas might get to 2,500 meters now vs. 2,350 a couple of decades ago. The very low altitudes will struggle more, but I'm fairly sure there's been trivial if any increase in rain incidence above 2,000 meters in the Alps, similar to us not seeing much rain at higher elevations in North America. North America ski areas are more complex in this regard because we have wide latitude variation and "safe" elevations where rain is rare range from 9,000 feet in SoCal, AZ, NM to 5,000 feet in Canada.

Ski resorts in the Alps have a very narrow latitude range (45-47) but a very wide altitude range. A lot of the low places are known to deteriorate rapidly in March. Many of them are probably more reliable than 40 years ago due to huge snowmaking systems. 1C rise in temperature reduces snowmaking opportunities some but not that much. JSpin once estimated 3-5 fewer days of snowmaking per season in Vermont with current temperatures vs. 40 years ago.
 
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Thanks for the beautiful photos. It's nice to see a first hand report of good times in the Alps this winter. This Washington Post article from Jan 12, 2023 is all doom and gloom. It is behind a paywall: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/12/skiing-climate-change-alps-snow/
The gist of it is that there is an existential crisis in the Alps and that global warming is bringing an end to winter sports as we know them. The end is not only near, it's overdue. Recreation in the Alps should be reinvented to non-ski activities with a lower carbon footprint. Bah humbug.
The CSIRO in Australia famously (in Australia) released a report in 2003 that suggested there would be no skiing in Oz by 2020. The big resorts have had 100 day seasons for the last few years. The media can be overly negative about skiing. I have read gloom and doom articles many times.
 
I've spotlighted Oz ski areas being vulnerable to a rise in the rain snow line. Here's an update to the Spencer' Creek depth chart.
Spencer2022.jpg

Even though 4 of the past 6 seasons have been good with max base over 200cm, the last season over 250cm was 2000, and that used to happen about once every 4 years. The trend is is the wrong direction, but it's gradual. I don't see how you can say that the snow disappears in something like 20 years, and it's ridiculous someone said that in 2003.

SoCal's trend is quite similar.
SoCal2022.jpg


Here the numbers are snowfall in inches. The last year over 200 was 2004-05, and that used to happen about once every 4 years. Sound familiar? Qualitatively it's worse than that. There has not been a sustained period with all of SoCal's natural snow terrain open since 2009-10. Longest might have been in March/April 2020 right after the pandemic shutdown.

So far this season it has rained 10 inches in L.A., almost twice normal. Meanwhile it has snowed 30 inches in the local ski areas, about 75% of normal. There have been 7 days of rain in the ski areas, 2 of them this week, so aside from Big Bear, the already modest trail counts have declined since the holidays. It's raining again now; snow level is supposed to drop to the base areas soon but we shall see.

Mt. Waterman has never opened in 8 of the past 16 seasons and sits close to square one now with all the rain.
 
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I'm a poor one to comment on this topic (Tony created this separate thread) because I'm not really into the science of climate change. I just see a lot of anxiety in young people these days and I think the way the press and social media inflames things is a prime reason why. I know this is an old person's view, but I think any attempts to slow or reverse climate change should be implemented calmly over a long period, nothing knee jerk. And nothing of a unilateral nature that would put the US at a severe economic disadvantage. The Wash Post has a climate section that is bigger and featured more prominently than the sports page. And it's 100% negative/downer reporting.

You can't really call me a climate change denier, I'm just skeptical about how aggressive to attempt to reverse it. I'm ok with sensible conservation measures and economically feasible ways to obtain cleaner energy. I just don't like young people to get scared out of their wits and think the world is coming to an end in ten years. Especially, if a lot of the climate change is due to nature and not man, and in 100 years could start reverting to cooler temps again without human intercession. Forgive my ignorance/naivete on the subject.
 
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I sent the Washington Post article mentioned above to Fraser but didn't post it here because we've seen variations of this theme before.

FYI: for most online newspaper subscriptions, there's a "gift an article" option (usually ten per month) right under the headline that allows you to get a link that anyone can open.
 
I'm a poor one to comment on this topic (Tony created this separate thread) because I'm not really into the science of climate change. I just see a lot of anxiety in young people these days and I think the way the press and social media inflames things is a prime reason why. I know this is an old person's view, but I think any attempts to slow or reverse climate change should be implemented calmly over a long period, nothing knee jerk. And nothing of a unilateral nature that would put the US at a severe economic disadvantage. The Wash Post has a climate section that is bigger and featured more prominently than the sports page. And it's 100% negative/downer reporting.

You can't really call me a climate change denier, I'm just skeptical about how aggressive to attempt to reverse it. I'm ok with sensible conservation measures and economically feasible ways to obtain cleaner energy. I just don't like young people to get scared out of their wits and think the world is coming to an end in ten years. Especially, if a lot of the climate change is due to nature and not man, and in 100 years could start reverting to cooler temps again without human intercession. Forgive my ignorance/naivete on the subject.
I understand your attitude.
I’m a believer in man made climate change. The evidence is there. But I don’t think we can realistically do anything about it.
Us that live in the west in relative luxury can’t reduce our consumption (carbon output) from where it is to say 70% of that while expecting the people of the second and third world not to continue to strive to live a lifestyle similar to ours (which will obviously increase their carbon output). We can’t tell a billion people that they should continue to live without electricity while we’re saving the planet by trading in the i.c.e BMW for a Tesla.

I guess Mother Nature will sort out the issue somehow. We’re all along for the ride.
 
Us that live in the west in relative luxury can’t reduce our consumption (carbon output) from where it is to say 70% of that
US has reduced by 12% since 2010 by just market forces, mainly reduction of coal consumption. With modest incentives, I don't think a 30-50% reduction will be that difficult. Wind and solar power generation and electric cars already pencil out economically for ~50% market shares IMHO. Going farther runs into more capital expense for energy storage and charging infrastructure, but it seems we should get to that 50% and see what's needed then to proceed any farther. We also get ancillary benefits of less pollution plus lower demand for fossil fuels reduces the leverage of places like Russia and the Middle East.
expecting the people of the second and third world not to continue to strive to live a lifestyle similar to ours
+1 Those places will only go to renewables if the first world demonstrates that it works economically. That means avoiding blunders like Germany shutting down its nukes in favor of Russian natural gas and now being forced to revive coal. California, despite going full speed on wind and solar, has extended the life of its last nuke and is keeping quite a few peaker natural gas plants available.
 
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I'm going to try to gift the Wash Post article to the group here. Let me know if this LINK works to view the entire article?
 
I'm going to try to gift the Wash Post article to the group here. Let me know if this LINK works to view the entire article?
Yes, that's how you do it.

Given the similarities in those WP and NYT articles, I'm wondering if the latter was generated through ChatGPT.
 
From James' TR, Sattel has an exceptionally low altitude range, 800 - 1,500 meters. So it's cherry picking the worst case scenario, and even the NY Times piece quoted a Gstaad rep:
In previous decades, Mr. In-Albon said, skiers accepted that holiday trips were at the mercy of the weather. “People were used to finding rocks on the piste from time to time, or that all slopes were not open at Christmas,” he said. “Nowadays, guests expect all slopes open for Christmas. If you don’t do that, then the customers will book in another destination.”
Of course I've been :beating-a-dead-horse: for decades that Christmas bears significant risk of lack of snow, and that the list of places worth advance booking then is relatively short.

As noted earlier in this thread, the Alps are not the only region plagued by excessive rain this early season. I wouldn't expect articles about the SoCal locals, but it's interesting that NYT and WaPo aren't highlighting Northeast ski area woes instead of the Alps. The Northeast is also worse overall while the really bad parts of the Alps are confined to the low altitude northern tier.
 
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The glacier situation in the Alps is far more climate change related:
1) The Alps (and continental North America) are experiencing greater temperature rises in summer than winter.
2) Unlike western North America, precipitation is at least as high in summer as winter, so at 10,000 feet Sonnblick Observatory was historically getting 32% of its annual snowfall May-October.
3) The effect of 1)+2) is to flip a significant chunk of snow to rain, upsetting the balance of total snowfall vs. total melting needed to maintain glaciers.

A conventional mid-December to early April ski area doesn't care how much it rains in the summer or how warm it is then. Winter snowfall is not coming down in most ski regions, and only gradually even in suspect locations like Australia and the Northeast.
NortheastSnowTrend.jpg


More rain/less snow in the more vulnerable regions is primarily a shoulder season issue. This has been overcome in the past 40 years by improved snowmaking. Going forward more people need to be stringent as I am about deciding when/where to ski in the early season, which includes the Christmas holidays.
 

Typical upbeat WaPo headline ;) :​

Ski resorts can now make fake snow in 80 degrees. Here’s why that’s a problem:​


Above link should work for all: Focus of article is on Techno Alpin and other manufacturers of snowmaking systems that can operate well above 32 degs. They can be helpful for ski areas operating on the margins of climate viability; e. g., AZ, Southeast US, etc. But they would be energy hogs if adopted by a large percent of all ski areas.
 
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Even by NY Times standards, that article is truly alarmist drivel. I clicked though to a couple of links.

"The paucity of snow across the European Alps, a phenomenon that has worsened distinctly since the early 1970s"
refers to a short one page blurb that mostly discusses plant life moving upward in altitude and doesn't even mention snowfall.

"..water reserves severely diminished by consecutive dry summers." links to a very detailed scientific study which I skimmed. The study identifies the 5 driest summers in high quality European records. Those are, in order, 1947, 2018, 2003, 1921, and 1911.

I think this is small time vs. western North America. Recall that the severely dry Euro summer of 2018 was preceded by one of the Alps heaviest snowfall seasons.

So a NY Times writer can stick an alarmist headline on references that don't particularly support his point?
 
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LOL, there is that adage in the journalism business: "never let the truth get in the way of a good story". Of course, I am sitting in my home office, here in New England, on Feb. 10, looking out at green grass in my back yard. 50 degrees here today at 10:00 AM. I'm thinking about hitting some golf balls this afternoon.
 
There has never been a time when the Northeast did not have periodic rain and thaw in winter. From 1971-1974 at Princeton I never saw more than 4 inches of snow fall at one time. Those 4 years also averaged 130+% of normal rainfall in nearby NYC.
:icon-twisted:
So now you know how I acquired my strong dislike of US eastern weather.
 
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there is that adage in the journalism business: "never let the truth get in the way of a good story"
While on the chair with the press attachée from Serre Chevalier, she mentioned a British tabloid reporter who asked for quotes about and photos of the snowless terrain there that he could combine with photos of other French ski areas that were in a similar situation. She replied that the French Southern Alps had better than average cover for that time of year and would he like photos of that? He said "no, that contradicts my end-of-the-skiing-industry-as-we-know-it storyline!"
 
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