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Europe's Endangered Ski Resorts |
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By Julio Godoy*
An
OECD report predicts that by 2050 most of the alpine glaciers will
have disappeared, and along with them Europe's ski resorts, due
to global warming.
BERLIN, Jan 29 (Tierramérica) - Ski lovers
in Europe are joining the list of those hurt by global climate change.
This year the northern hemisphere winter is seeing moderate temperatures
and little snowfall -- and is looking more like springtime.
Numerous winter sports events scheduled for European venues have
been postponed or canceled, such as the Tour de Ski, a new cross-country
ski championship organized by the International Ski Federation,
to begin Dec. 29 in the central Czech town of Nove Mesto. The lack
of snow forced postponement and a relocation to an artificial track
in Olympic stadium in Munich, Germany.
At France's Val d'Isère and Switzerland's St. Moritz, World Cup
competitions were called off due to lack of snow. At the German
ski report Todtmoos, it hasn't snowed in nearly a year. And temperatures
are so unseasonably warm, that flowers began to emerge in December,
as if an early spring had come.
All of this seems to confirm the predictions of numerous experts
about the effects of global climate changes, especially for winter
sports and Europe's ski resorts.
One such scientific report, "Climate Change in the European Alps",
to be published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) in February, predicts that by 2050 most of the
glaciers in the Alps will have disappeared, and most of Europe's
ski slopes along with them.
The report stresses that in the Alps, which are "particularly sensitive
to climate change", the rate of warming is triple the global average
rate.
"The years 1994, 2000, 2002, and particularly 2003 have been the
warmest on record in the Alps in the past 500 years," states the
report, adding that climate models predict "even greater changes
in the coming decades, including a reduction in snow cover at lower
altitudes, receding glaciers and melting permafrost at higher altitudes,
and changes in temperature and precipitation extremes."
The study finds that 57 of the 666 ski areas in the Alps -- or nine
percent -- are already suffering the effects of climate change.
If average winter temperatures increase one degree Celsius, that
total would jump 25 percent. The four-degree warming predicted by
most climate change research over the next century would mean that
70 percent of the ski resorts could not operate, and only 202 would
have natural snow.
One of the authors of the report, Shardul Agrawala, told Tierramérica
that the areas of the Alps most affected by global warming are in
Austria and Germany, and that only the largest and highest-altitude
ski areas have a chance to survive climatic catastrophe.
Among the ski resorts considered most vulnerable is Kitzbühel, located
in a valley of the southwestern Austrian region of Tyrol, some 800
meters above sea level. In contrast, the French ski area Val Thorens,
at 2,300 meters above sea level, enjoys renown for the constant
presence of snow on its slopes.
Over the Christmas holiday, Kitzbühel opened only 10 of its 54 lifts
because there was so little snow. The resort had to make artificial
snow in order to make its runs ski-able.
But according to German political scientist Frank Kürschner, an
expert in the subject, artificial snow has "horrendous" environmental
costs.
"To produce enough snow to cover one square meter requires 100 liters
of water," Kürschner told Tierramérica. "And a canon to spray it
over the ski runs consumes 13,000 kilowatts per hour per hectare.
That's the equivalent of the annual consumption of a four-member
family in an industrialized country," he added.
The OECD report supports his claims, though states them more subtly:
"Snow-making has proven cost-effective, but such estimates are based
only on the direct financial costs to ski operations and do not
include the potential externalities of such practices on water consumption,
energy demand, landscape, or ecology."
Furthermore, says Agrawala, "as temperatures rise, snow-making costs
will rise disproportionately, and if global warming reaches a certain
limit, artificial snow simply will not be viable."
Although the report makes recommendations to the governments of
Alpine countries affected by climate change, Agrawala says the report's
findings are practically unavoidable, and the predictions apply
to mountainous regions similar to the Alps, such as in North America,
Australia and New Zealand.
* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent. |
