Climate Sunday: Could Winter Sports Be Going All Downhill From Here?

Although I don't really follow the Olympics and by the wintr'y armpits of Ymir, am I sick of snow! it is worth noting that this particular Olympics has been marred in part by the uncooperative weather of Sochi, which has been most unseasonably warm.  Appropos of this, my climate Sunday post is dedicated to winter sports.

Now, I don't ski, myself. My last "skiing vacation" turned into a brewpub crawl through Vermont, which will probably surprise exactly no one.  So I think I'll leave it to a US Olympic team Skiier to point out the grim future of his sport--that would be Andrew Newell, who offered a column for USA Today: 

As a skier, my life revolves around winter and being outside. Years spent training have not only honed my skills, but also shown me the negative impacts of climate change first-hand. There have been countless times in the past 10 years when our early season competitions have been delayed or canceled due to lack of snow, or our spring and summer training camps disrupted due to erratic weather or insufficient snowpack. It's no coincidence then that the last decade was also the hottest decade ever recorded.

Without efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, the winter sport economy in my home state of Vermont will disappear in the near future, and has already begun feeling the heat. Between 2000-2010, the snow sport industry lost over $1 billion in revenue as a result of shrinking snow packs and shortened winters. In a 2012 report detailing global warming's effect on the snow industry, scientists predicted that more than half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast are at risk of not being able to maintain a 100-day season by 2039.

This brings a terrible cost to regions that depend on recreational winter tourism. And his fellow athletes also agree because they too have noticed the changes. In some areas, some dubious means are being used to try and bring snow to drought-prone areas. But what happens when no snow will stay?

The trends showing reduced snowpack aren't just bad news for winter sports, it also impacts the water available for irrigation and the volume of lakes, rivers and streams for fishing. People are right to be alarmed at something that so changes their way of living, but looking at the way it impacts our sports shows that it also affects our quality of life.