How is this calculated?
I'm looking at Abasin and Loveland.
Abasin base is 10,780 ft base, latitude 39.6degN
Loveland base 10,800 latitude latitude 39.7 deg N
Yet, corrected it's
Abasin 10,688
Loveland 10,720
1/10th a degree latitude should be 25 feet, no?
When doing a table like this the starting values should be in it.
The full dataset's available at https://1drv.ms/x/s!Ag3jxxfR7xEGjJxJSdPmbCAZrEPnTQ
Feel free to view the starting values, formulas, download, copy, modify, whatever
In the case of this specific question, I used more specific latitude numbers from Google Maps, for about .045 degree difference. .045 * 250 rounds to an 11' difference.
With solar radiation, it's clear that shaded slopes will be less effected. South slopes getting the most sun. It makes sense in my brain, but i'm not sure if it's true that the further north you go, due to the tilt of the axis of the earth. South slopes line up more directly with the sun. Although the sun isn't as strong, the angle is more direct resulting in more solar radiation during times of sunlight. Think of a flashlight shining in the your face vs down on top of your head. Of course, this probably means that faces get even less radiation at higher latitudes.
I think you're off target on two points here. 1) shorter days (during the relevant winter) mean less sunlight the farther north you go. 2) the farther north, the closer the winter sun stays to the horizon (less ascension, maybe, is the technical term?). The sun is never directly "overhead" north of the Tropic of Cancer. And the farther north you go, the less "overhead" it seems. I get what you were thinking, and I think it might hold true at least some of the time for objects that lean southward (if the Leaning Tower of Pisa's top is south of its foot, then it seems like walls under the lean might behave like you describe), but ski slopes aren't getting under-lighting like that.
Might be nice to see that re-sorted by normalized bottom (or average). Because the acreage at the bottom is higher than the acreage at the peak.
Here it is re-sorted. And your comment has me wondering how widespread the "more acreage lower" phenomenon is. Mount Hood Meadows and Arizona Snowbowl both have more terrain near their summits than near their lowest points... way more if you include hiking terrain. Sunshine Village has way more high-elevation terrain than low, although I'm less sure there of the specific near-summit terrain. I think those resorts are outliers, but anyone have other good examples of mountains with more acreage up high than down low?