Ski resorts ‘to melt’ as hot weather set to force closures across Europe

NationalWorld.com

Experts say there will be “fewer skiing opportunities” in 30 years due to climate change.

Transcript

00:00 Hi, I'm Isabella Bonham, a reporter for National World,

00:03 and I've been looking into how climate change will affect skiing in the future.

00:07 At the start of the year, there were shocking scenes of ski slopes without any snow,

00:11 worrying ski lovers and ski fanatics who have yet to take the slopes.

00:15 So, will climate change affect skiing in the decades to come?

00:19 Well, I've spoke to several experts to understand more.

00:23 In, say, the Alps, mostly it's fairly mild.

00:27 You can already see that the lower-lying ski areas are just gone.

00:31 My wife is Swiss, actually, and we spend time there.

00:34 The place she's from is at 800 metres.

00:37 They had their own ski area, just for children, obviously, but that hasn't opened for years.

00:43 It's very much dependent on altitude.

00:45 Any area that's below about 1,500 metres is already getting marginal.

00:51 They have to close more than they would expect to.

00:54 In 20 years, any place below 1,500 metres is probably not going to be viable.

00:58 It is definitely going to change the whole landscape in Europe.

01:02 The skiing season has shortened by about a month in the last 30, 40 years,

01:07 and that's actually quite important for the viability of the resorts

01:11 because it shortens at a very crucial time around the Christmas holidays,

01:15 which is a really important time financially for the ski resorts.

01:19 Most of the resorts now, most of their runs are artificial snow,

01:23 but that only works if it's cold enough, so that won't work forever.

01:27 It might buy a resort 10 or 20 years, but it's not going to buy it 40 years.

01:33 Sarah Burden, communications manager at the tourism office in Morsey,

01:37 spoke to me about the situation in the Alps

01:40 and whether or not the resort is concerned for the future.

01:43 The whole of the Alps has been getting warmer over the last few years,

01:47 and we are definitely seeing changes in the temperatures we are experiencing.

01:52 Some years we are having less snowfall than we would have had on average,

01:55 say 20, 30, 50 years ago.

01:58 I think anybody would be crazy not to be concerned about the future

02:01 with the changes that we are seeing happening to the climate.

02:04 There's a lot that we've been doing in Morsey to work towards that.

02:07 We don't see that skiing is going to be stopped,

02:11 or that there is going to be closure and no skiing happening,

02:14 certainly not within the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

02:18 However, I think we do have to be ready to adapt to that.

02:21 Professor Shepard touched on artificial snow,

02:24 and Henry John from the Ski Club of Great Britain expanded on this,

02:27 and whether or not we will be able to use it in the future,

02:30 and will skiers enjoy it?

02:33 The biggest complaint from a skier's point of view

02:35 is that it feels very different skiing on natural snow.

02:37 We will potentially see more widespread use of it.

02:40 The trouble you do have is that if temperatures do continue to increase,

02:43 artificial snow can only be created if the conditions are right

02:46 and it's cold enough to do so.

02:48 Skiing in mountains that are covered in white is very, very different

02:51 from skiing on a single chandelier amidst a sea of green.

02:53 We may well see resorts closing because they don't have access to higher terrain.

02:56 So, will we be able to ski in Europe in the future,

03:00 or will we have to resort to places such as a snowdome in Tamworth to ski?

03:05 We will still be able to ski in Europe.

03:07 It'll be a question of where.

03:09 You'll need to go high, up to resorts above 2,000 metres.

03:12 That's where you're going to still get consistent snowfall.

03:15 It might be that we see different weather patterns featuring better snow.

03:20 You may find that Austria does better in the long term than France,

03:23 but I think we still don't know enough about those patterns

03:26 to know into the future where things are going to happen.

03:29 It's going to be a case of waiting to see what happens, unfortunately.

03:32 .

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