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DerKomisar

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Interesting article..,scary prognosis for skiing if the climate changes as predicted. Also interesting last sentence about Epic and Ikon ski pass programs considering 2 year passes to offset a bad snow year. I guess a snow guarantee?

A Skier’s Guide to Climate Change: Enjoy It for Now - Bloomberg Businessweek
https://apple.news/AICh1E0PdQmiVvmQiHE3dOw
 

Doug Briggs

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I mean..no offense..but if all we're worried about is lack of skiing, we need to re-evaluate our priorities..

As someone living in a ski town, yes and no. It would suck that I couldn't ski anymore, but it would be worse that I wouldn't have work. All my work relies directly or indirectly on the tourist industry which is skiing 6 months of the year.
 

musicmatters

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“By 2050, about one-third of U.S. ski resorts will have lost more than half of their season, according to the University of Colorado study”

Woah...
 

geepers

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In many ways skiing in Australia is the canary in the coalmine in terms of effect of climate change.

This graph shows the situation since measurements began to be taken at a place called Spencer Creek - it's a key measuring station for our largest hydro power scheme and a pretty good proxy for what's happening in the nearby resorts of Thredbo and Perisher - the latter owned by Vail.
Spencer-Creek-Snow.jpg

Full article here.
For the data purists, this graph unfortunately does not show the 2017 and 2018 seasons which were a little better in terms of peak depth compared to 2016 - the last year shown above. So you'll have to visualise them based on these charts.
Spencer-Creek-Snow2016-17.jpg
Spencer-Creek-Snow2016-18.jpg


The multi-decade graph above certainly re-enforces my experience skiing in this area for 60+ years. Declining snow coverage as conditions become ever more marginal.

Australian resorts like Thredbo and Perisher have made multi-million dollar investments in snow making. It is part of the answer - right now (July 7th 2019) it is the only thing allowing resorts to be open. But this snow-cam shot shows the issue.
Thredbo-Jul-7-19.jpg

The snow making is restricted to the groomed runs. Skiers are visible descending what is called the Super Trail just to the right of the chair lift and then cutting back under it on the lower slopes. This is a nice intermediate run and fine if all that you wish to ski is a fairly crowded groomer that will be scraped back to ice by lunch.

All the more interesting terrain - left half of the picture and further left off screen and the ridge in background top right - are not skiable with this little natural snow cover and require more snow base over a wide area than can be reasonably provided with snow making.

So snow making may work for a section of the ski population but unlikely to provide the same type of skiing experience that posters here seem to enjoy.

Of course the situation could change rapidly with a couple of good snow storms. However at this point the season has been officially under way for 1 month.

I mean..no offense..but if all we're worried about is lack of skiing, we need to re-evaluate our priorities..

Maybe. Then again, this snow pack provides the water Australia's largest irrigation and hydro-power system. Low snow pack equals declining damn levels equals less water for growing crops and powering the machines of industry.
 

raisingarizona

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I mean..no offense..but if all we're worried about is lack of skiing, we need to re-evaluate our priorities..

Yup. If these predictions are correct than we are gonna have much bigger problems than being able to go skiing or the success of winter tourism industries.

There’s gonna be massive population displacement, starvation and global war. Desperate hungry people do crazy shit.

If you have young kids or are about to you might wanna start teaching them survival skills and gun use. Shits about to get real over the next 50 years.
 

Doug Briggs

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That failure of winter tourism is a first world problem doesn't negate its being a harbinger of ever spiraling negative impacts resulting from climate change. Workers that are displaced when their jobs disappear will have their world turned upside down. It doesn't get more real than that. They will adversely affect the locations they are displaced to by adding pressure on already limited job and housing markets.

I hope that society will focus on mitigating the problem of climate change rather than preparing for the failure of society.
 

crgildart

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In before the thread gets locked..
 

crgildart

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“By 2050, about one-third of U.S. ski resorts will have lost more than half of their season, according to the University of Colorado study”

Woah...
Everyone above 9k will be fine for generations if they don't mind what we deal with in the mid atlantic today. Stuff in lower elevations and south of the northeast could be kaput in 50 years. Right now it takes blowing snow every sub 25 degree window we get. Though last season was a little better than the previous, not everyone made it to 100% open.
 

Eleeski

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So we just ended a fantastic ski season today at Squaw. The biggest news of the day is the Women's World cup soccer game. The world economy is thriving. All over the planet there are more people living safe healthy and comfortable lives than at any time in history. To be sure, there are still wars, famine, slavery, hardship but progress is being made.

CO2 has relatively recently been identified as a threat. A threat to future generations. Steps to reduce CO2 are just starting to have an effect. There is hope that in the long term CO2 levels will stabilize and normalize.

Many of the changes from the current elevated CO2 levels will take a long time to recede (generations?). Regardless of how quickly the world goes to zero CO2 emissions. The transition to zero CO2 emissions must not cause "spiraling negative impacts". The risks from the solutions might be more than the risks from CO2.

There are lots of threats to us. I'm pretty confident the two big earthquakes had nothing to do with CO2. If in 200 years, climate change is the biggest problem we face, we as a species are doing great.

The article referenced here that I read (and the season I just skied - coming two years after an even better one) left me with a fairly upbeat outlook. There will be winners and losers with climate change. Snow skiing might be a winner - it sure was this year.

Eric
 

crgildart

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^^^^The Human Race has lived through thousands and thousands of years with zero measurable carbon emissions other than a few camp fires. We haven't been around long with this level of greenhouse gas emission. We know based on that which is definitely preferable.

Everything I read, almost everything that seems reputable says that the snow high and north will get better and better before it suddenly gets worse and gone. Warmer air can carry more moisture, and when that hits cold up high or up north then we get snow. Biggest snow we get in the mid atlantic comes from a sudden blast from the tropics hitting a cold front dropping, mini snow hurricane/tropical storm. The huge snow packs are actually evidence of global warming and climate change, not proof it isn't as bad as predicted.

Meanwhile up on Alaska look at how their summer is going... not citing any one day or one high temp bit the climate this spring and summer.
 

Unpiste

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Current estimates predict somewhere around 2°C (3-4°F) warming in the Tahoe region by around 2050, even in a scenario representing fairly moderate warming: impactlab.org. (A worst case scenario, with emissions continuing more or less unabated, results in 4-6°C warming by 2100.) That does mean more moisture in the air to produce snow, but it also means increasing snow levels, and with many winter storms in the Tahoe basin already producing rain at lake level, that's not good for skiing.

The economic impacts don't exactly look rosy either: research-it.berkeley.edu; news.stanford.edu. And that's really just the start; here's a scary bit of research out of the USDA Agriculture Research Service showing that CO2 levels expected to be seen this century result in a significant reduction in the nutritional content of rice, which billions of people rely on as a primary food source: ars.usda.gov. (A department which, incidentally, the current US administration is doing its best to decimate: washingtonpost.com.)

Nearly if not all the research indicates that the current generation is both the first with the knowledge and ability to do something about climate change and the last who will have the opportunity to stave off the worst of its effects. It's good to be upbeat and hopeful about the future, but it's also important not to allow that hopefulness to turn to apathy. I for one would love to be skiing Tahoe in 2050 and beyond.
 
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Wilhelmson

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We'll be healthier from more biking and swimming.
 

James

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So snow making may work for a section of the ski population but unlikely to provide the same type of skiing experience that posters here seem to enjoy.
Skiing in the Northeast would barely be possible without snowmaking. Honestly, we really only need cold. The skiing can be pretty good.
If that goes, forget it.

Colorado could become a huge pot farm? Maybe there's an advantage to growing high altitude weed.
 

jack97

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The huge snow packs are actually evidence of global warming and climate change, not proof it isn't as bad as predicted.

lol.... so we got larger snow pack because of global warming? I have a bridge for sale.... it's made with carbon free material.
 

geepers

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So we just ended a fantastic ski season today at Squaw. The biggest news of the day is the Women's World cup soccer game. The world economy is thriving. All over the planet there are more people living safe healthy and comfortable lives than at any time in history. To be sure, there are still wars, famine, slavery, hardship but progress is being made.

CO2 has relatively recently been identified as a threat. A threat to future generations. Steps to reduce CO2 are just starting to have an effect. There is hope that in the long term CO2 levels will stabilize and normalize.

Many of the changes from the current elevated CO2 levels will take a long time to recede (generations?). Regardless of how quickly the world goes to zero CO2 emissions. The transition to zero CO2 emissions must not cause "spiraling negative impacts". The risks from the solutions might be more than the risks from CO2.

There are lots of threats to us. I'm pretty confident the two big earthquakes had nothing to do with CO2. If in 200 years, climate change is the biggest problem we face, we as a species are doing great.

The article referenced here that I read (and the season I just skied - coming two years after an even better one) left me with a fairly upbeat outlook. There will be winners and losers with climate change. Snow skiing might be a winner - it sure was this year.

Eric

I do love a sense of optimism in the face of evidence to the contrary.
KeelingCurve_mlo_full_record_May-12-2019_web.jpg

Yep, that graph looks like it is about to flat line, if we squint a bit and rotate it clockwise. Any decade now...any decade...:popcorn:
 

crgildart

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lol.... so we got larger snow pack because of global warming? I have a bridge for sale.... it's made with carbon free material.
You're going to need that bridge with rising sea levels and warmer air bringing bigger, wetter storms causing more flooding..
 

Unpiste

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lol.... so we got larger snow pack because of global warming?
Somewhat facetious comments aside, yes. Absolutely.

The moisture carrying capacity of air increases significantly with temperature. Warmer temperatures produce greater precipitation totals, and as long as temperatures remain below freezing, that precipitation falls as snow.
 
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