Climate change may be a scare for ski resorts

Ski Resorts could be a thing of the past in a couple decades, with climate change causing a dramatic loss of snow cover at ski resorts over the world. Some ski resorts are seeing much less snow overall; ski seasons are shortening in certain areas; and rising global temperatures are only going to further reduce snowfall. Three years ago, organizers of a United Nations conference in Davos, Switzerland gathered with ski resort tour operators and officials from around the world to make everyone aware that the ski business is in danger. "The entire tourism product will be affected," said Geoffrey Lipman, assistant secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization. "Every destination has a climate-related component." While some of the higher altitude ski resorts in the world, such as Vail and Breckinridge in Colorado still thrive; there is a lot of evidence that some resorts are suffering from this change in climate. One of the leading destinations in the world, Whistler Blackcomb in Canada, could disappear from the skiing map. Other low-lying resorts may be in danger as well. A report released by Bill McGuire, the professor of geohazards and director of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, says that Alpine temperatures have increased by 2C since the 1970s. According to McGuire, further warming could cause the area's resorts to experience a 30% loss in snow cover by 2020, rising to a 50% decline by the 2050s. Essentially, low lying ski resorts like Whistler could be gone in 20 years, and climate change will certainly have some sort of effect on other ski resorts around the world. Higher altitude resorts may have to face additional risks such as unpredictable conditions, landslides, and avalanches. Either way you see, skiing may be facing some harsh realities ahead. "Increasing global temperatures by 2030 could have a devastating impact on the winter holiday industry," said McGuire. 


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