Schussing on slush (or worse)
the Globe and Mail, March 9, 2005

Is Whistler's wet year a freak occurrence? Many researchers say ski resorts across North America and Europe face rising snow lines and erratic weather. SARAH EFRON investigates how ski operators are grappling with the threat of global warming

It's been a skier's nightmare much of the winter in Whistler, B.C. For most of January and February, skiers going up the Whistler Mountain gondola have passed over huge sections of muddy brown earth on their way to the white slopes above. Whistler Blackcomb held the Snowboard World Championships in January under cloudy, damp skies using artificial snow. Letters in the local newspaper complained of the epidemic of "mad cloud disease." Locals say it's just a been a bad year, but they can't help but wonder if with global warming, freak events like this will become more common.

"Statistically, this is a one in 25 year. I like those odds," says Arthur DeJong, Whistler Blackcomb's environmental resource manager, while riding the gondola up to the open ski areas on a mild day last month. "However, we're certainly not living in denial of climate change. We believe it's happening and we're trying to do our part by reducing the amount of fossil fuels we emit. We know we aren't going to change the direction of warming by ourselves, so we will also adapt to climate change."

Whistler is known for its mild winters, but this year has been much warmer than usual, turning the resort's lower slopes into mud puddles. The weather has been disappointing for ski addicts such as Anna Racine, a 23-year-old who works in a Whistler ski and snowboard shop. "The season has been challenging," she says. "Normally we have our best skiing in January and February, and by this point in the year, I would have spent around 40 days up on the hill. But this year, I've only been up maybe 17 times."

For Racine, global warming is a distant but real threat to her winter lifestyle. The scientific predictions aren't timid: many climate change researchers say the future of ski resorts across North America and Europe is in danger over the coming decades. A 2003 study by the United Nations Environment Programme and the University of Zurich says snowfall in the lower lying mountain areas of Europe will become increasingly unreliable and as a result, many ski resorts will be unable to survive economically. In the future, the report said, people who love winter sports will be heading higher up in the hills, into areas considered environmentally sensitive, to get their winter fix - and may find that it's crowded at the top. The snow line in Austria is predicted to rise 200 to 300 metres in the next 30 to 50 years, and in a worst-case scenario - a temperature climb by 3.4 degrees C by 2070 - none of the country's existing ski resorts will be operating. The study says ski centres in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are particularly vulnerable, but resorts in North America and Australia will also be impacted. Climate change researchers aren't just predicting a slow rise in temperatures: they say weather patterns will become more erratic.

"We could see more flash freezes and thaws, which are going to change the stability of the snow pack and could lead to more avalanches," says Dan McCarthy, an alpine ecologist at Brock University. "We should expect the unexpected."

Consensus on global warming has grown over the past decade, and while there are still a few naysayers, the majority of scientists, politicians and industry leaders around the world agree the planet is getting warmer as a result of human activities. Research shows that during the past century, average global temperatures rose around 0.6°C. Scientists predict the planet will heat up more rapidly over the coming century, although they're debating how warm it will become, and most agree that a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would slow the rate of change.

When the Kyoto Protocol came into effect last month, Prime Minister Paul Martin gave a speech in Montreal saying that global warming is no longer just a theory. "The predictions of the 1990s are becoming reality - and not just in the models of research scientists," he told a large audience at Montreal's city hall. "You can see and sense the changes. You only have to visit the Arctic, as I did last summer, to confirm it."

Scientists say mountain ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change. "In the winter, the snow reflects sunlight," says John Harte, a professor of environmental science at the University of California at Berkeley. "When you lose the winter snow pack, the brown earth soaks up the sunlight and then it gets even warmer."

Harte has been warming a meadow near the Rocky Mountain ski town of Crested Butte, Colo., with heat lamps for more than 14 years to preview the effects of global warming, gradually watching the lush valley dry out and become invaded by sagebrush. He says many ski operators aren't taking climate change seriously. "When they have a warm year, they don't attribute it to long-term trend, they just attribute it to a bum year," says Harte. "They think maybe next year will be better, but if the scientific forecasts will be believed, it won't get better."

He says ski operators are especially reluctant to listen when they're experiencing good ski conditions. Whistler may be soggy, but resorts in California's Sierra Nevada and San Bernadino Mountains received several feet of snow last month, and skiers in Colorado and Utah are also enjoying an excellent season. Harte, however, warns ski operators and developers to look at the bigger picture before building or expanding resorts. "Ski conditions will become increasingly poor and the viability of ski developments is going to decline over the next decades, which has led me to believe that investing in real estate and other aspects of ski development is a poor choice."

The debate about building ski resorts raged last year in British Columbia when the provincial government approved a new ski centre on Jumbo Glacier, in the Purcell Range of the Rocky Mountains. Environmentalists argued that in 50 years, the glacier will be gone and the multi-million dollar resort will "literally melt away." Developers claimed it would take a catastrophic increase in temperature - much more than the 1.8 to 3.0 C predicted by scientists over the next 100 years - to melt the glacier. And if that happened, they argued Jumbo would be better off than lower elevation resorts; in fact, it could be the only one in the province with natural snow.

Global warming is a subject that many ski operators are grappling with, and it's forcing them to think beyond their five-year business plans and to imagine decades into the future. The industry was one of the first in the United States to accept global warming as legitimate and to express concern about it. In 2002, the Colorado-based lobby group the National Ski Areas Association started a campaign called Keep Winter Cool to encourage winter sports enthusiasts to reduce their own energy consumption. The group is also lobbying U.S. President George W. Bush's government for legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The organization predicts that in the coming decades, resorts will have to offer year-round activities to make ends meet and they'll rely increasingly on snowmaking. On an individual level, however, some resorts such as Whistler-Blackcomb are actively planning around climate change, while others are only dimly aware of the issue.

Back at Whistler Mountain, the gondola is reaching 6000 feet. Arthur DeJong gets out and walks past the Roundhouse Lodge, where a group of noisy teenagers are strapping on their skis and snowboards. DeJong points past the clouds, to a glacier on nearby Overlord Mountain. "Most of glaciers in this region, including Overlord, are half the size they were 100 years ago," he says. "For us, climate change stares us in the face."

The resort's glaciers are used for skiing at least three seasons of the year and they're also the site of snowboarding camps in the summer. Whistler Blackcomb is trying to grow back the glaciers by adding artificial snow and by building snow fences to protect them from wind erosion, says DeJong. The resort is also trying to set a good example by using fuel-efficient snow grooming machines and the hill is even researching the viability of putting wind turbines on their mountains to produce clean energy. The second part of the resort's strategy is to invest heavily in snowmaking equipment, which will help them operate for the entire season, but scientists warn, is expensive and uses massive quantities of energy and water. DeJong says that overall, Whistler Blackcomb is well prepared for global warming, and if need be, the resort has plenty of high alpine where it can put new ski runs.

It's an option that Quebec's Mont Tremblant ski resort doesn't have. "We're literally at the top of the mountain," says Bryce Fraser, vice-president of ski area operations. It's been an erratic season for ski resorts in Quebec: Tremblant has dealt with rainy days followed by extreme cold snaps and resorts in the Eastern Townships and the Quebec City area have experienced warm temperatures and less than average snowfall. But Fraser says that in the long term, his resort is in a good position: the cold current in the North Atlantic should stabilize the Quebec climate, although he suspects his competitors in the U.S. Midwest won't be so lucky. Mont Tremblant is investing in snowmaking equipment, but Fraser says that's nothing new: they already rely heavily on artificial snow. Fraser, however, does wonder if a warmer climate will have an effect on the popularity of winter sports.

"It could have negative impact on the industry if cities like Boston and New York, which are used to getting some snowfall through winter, cease to have snow," he says. "Sometimes seeing snow is the trigger to get people to think about winter sports."

"I think that's absolute hogwash," says Mosteller. "Look at how popular ski real estate has been for the last 10 years. I think that no matter what, the mountains will still offer one of best escapes from people's lifestyles in the city. People come here to have quality time with their friends and family, and there's no better place to do it than in the mountains."

If Mosteller is right and his Rocky Mountain resorts operate successfully in the warmer climate, they may find themselves with less competitors, as southern and lower elevation resorts are squeezed out of the marketplace. Ski hills such as the ones on Vancouver's North Shore are in a riskier position. Mount Seymour in North Vancouver has no snowmaking equipment, and its top elevation is only 4,125 feet (1250 metres), compared with Fernie's 6,316 feet (1,925 m) and Lake Louise's 8,765 feet (2,672 m). This past January and February, Mount Seymour was shut down for several weeks due to the unusual warm weather and the resort had to lay off staff. But media relations manager Andy Boniface says he's not worried about the resort's long-term future. "It's hard to predict what will happen 40 or 50 years from now, but I think Seymour will still be a viable place to ski because it has been for the last 50 years," he says. "There have been a few warm years like this, but typically, we get a good amount of snow. There will be skiing here on the North Shore for a long time."

For more information:

National Ski Areas Association & Natural Resources Defence Council : www.keepwintercool.org.

Melting Mountains: A partnership between the Alpine Club of Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Government of Canada, and Mountain Equipment Co-op. www.meltingmountains.org

United Nations Environment Programme: www.un.org/earthwatch/atmosphere .