The tragic effect of climate change on skiing

[sszycher]

OK, Tony C, I luv ya but let?s have at it again

Back before my UT trip in late Jan, I attributed my recent bad luck with my UT ski trips with this comment:

?Personally, I attribute this climate change...more snow droughts and warm ups along with big snow years (04, 05). All I can say is this: during the 90's, it used to be money in the bank that you'd at least get pp conditions in the Wasatch from Xmas - mid March, and could therefore book a trip weeks or months in advance and not worry. It's a lot harder to do that these days. Hey, I'll still have fun, but I'm just calling it like I see it.?

You then replied the following: http://firsttracksonline.com/boards/vie ... 5312#15312

?This is demonstrably not true. Alta December 1966 - March 1986 monthly average 93.61 inches with standard deviation 41.10 inches. Alta December 1986 - March 2006 monthly average 87.82 inches with standard deviation 36.68 inches. Less variability in the past 20 years than the previous 20, though neither difference in average nor standard deviation is meaningful. I'll repeat this again; there is NO trend in snowfall over the past 30 years in any of the 97 areas in North America that I measure except for low altitude (<4,000 ft.) in the Pacific Northwest.?, along with stats from the 70's/80?s thru the present.

OK, after I got back from my trip (which turned out great, after all my bitching!), I started a new job which has kept my weekdays busy, and I?ve been enjoying the great stretch here in the East from 2/14 ? 3/18 so I haven?t had time to respond. My apologies. But now that I?ve got my head back above water, I?d like to rekindle this debate.

Here?s my point: strictly using snow totals at high elevation resorts does not truly address my overall point, which is that climate change is having a slow but steady negative influence on ski conditions on a worldwide basis. As we in the East know, if snowfall is followed rapidly by a thaw/freeze cycle, it significantly degrades the skiing quality. And I don?t have hard stats at my fingertips (God forbid!! ), but on the heels of a very warm March in the inter-mountain West (and elsewhere, I think, such as CA, the PAC NW, ID, etc), these unusually long and strong warm spells, I stand by my point that it?s becoming more difficult to count on good pp conditions (not powder, which has always been a crapshoot) when planning a ski trip weeks or months in advance.

Moreover, I submit that citing stats from the 70?s & 80?s is now practically useless since anthropogenic global warming (there, I said it!! :shock: ) has resulted in significant changes in just the past 15 years. Tony, I know and respect your use of data?just look at how many worldwide temperature records have been broken since, say, 1993. And surely you?ve aware of glaciers receding all over the world, and lower elevation ski areas in Europe becoming highly endangered. This is a problem that stands to get much worse before it gets any better, unless all us humans (not just the USA) take drastic, immediate action.

In short, the future ain?t what it used to be!

 

[salida]

I agree...

I would like to see some sort of regression between snowfall stats, temperature, and snow consistency... Surely this is hard to get.

Ideally you could correlate so that you could make forecasts of ski conditions based on what monthly temps are likely to be in advance. <example> NOAA predicts march is 3 degrees above normal for the wasatch, thus your chances of skiing powder or packed powder is 45% </example>

Something like that...

Porter

 

[Tony Crocker]

2 issues here:
1. I repeat, no trends in precipitation over the 40 years I have data. If altitude is high enough, as in nearly all western resorts, no trend in snowfall. Lower the elevation enough and I agree you see impact. Whistler base, low resorts in Europe, Australia. People really do have short memories. Doesn't anybody remember how much it dumped in March/April 2006? The Sierra broke all time records for April (and the previous high April was 2003) and wasn't far off in March. We are fortunate that western North America is probably the least vulnerable to warming ski region in the world due to the altitude of most resorts.
2. Warmer temperatures would imply that the transition to spring conditions from packed powder might occur faster after storms or sooner in the spring. As many of you know March/early April is my most frequently skied time of the season, and I'm not so sure about this being a trend either. I just recently analyzed my 17 years worth of March trips to Utah http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards ... php?t=2964 and the swift spring warmups are a recurring characteristic of Utah weather. For what it's worth, the hottest trip was in 1986, and 2006 was a powderfest the whole week.

Temperature data is highly variable naturally, and also by location. Any observed warming trend over the past 30 years is well within the range of historical variability before the Industrial Revolution, and I'm still waiting for an explanation why weather cooled between 1940 and 1970.

Unlike Michael Crichton, I do respect the precautionary principle with respect to global warming. As Larry Schick puts it, we are conducting an unprecedented experiment with the amount of CO2, methane and other gases we are putting into the atmosphere, with unknown consequences. Thus it would be prudent to limit the size of the experiment.

With respect to salida's question, I spend a lot of time observing and commenting upon the merits of ski areas with respect to snow preservation. I find that exposure (in combination with steepness) and altitude (tends to result in low humidity and absolute lower temperatures) are the most important variables. Wind (causes sublimation rather than surface melting) is also positive for preserving snow. Pure temperature differences are not necessarily the most important factor, although I do think it's the main difference between Alta/Snowbird and the best preserved areas in Colorado.