Climate change could change the face, place of future Winter Olympics
Posted February 9, 2022 2:55 p.m. EST
Updated February 9, 2022 6:30 p.m. EST
Outdoor winter sports like those that dazzle during the Olympic Games depend on winter weather, but climate change is having a warming effect.
Kathie Dello, state climatologist for North Carolina, says climate change is being felt across the state.
"We've also seen our snow chances decline over the past 20 years. We see it here in the Triangle," she said. "We tend to get ice over snow."
At North Carolina's Sugar Mountain Resort, winter this year kept people waiting.
"It was a bit rocky in the beginning, with unseasonable warm weather and lack of snowfall," said Marketing Director Kimberley Jochl. The slopes at Sugar Mountain opened on Nov. 15, which is about normal.
They will stay open through most of March.
Sugar Mountain, like the venues at the Olympics this year in China, relies on snow-making machines. But it still has to be cold – maximum temperatures in the 30s – for the machine-made stuff to fly.
"I think we're worried about having fewer days with snow or conditions that aren't right for snow making," Dello said.
For Jochl and her counterpart at Beech Mountain, Marketing Director Talia Freeman, the climate change is making the winter harder to predict.
"Here at Sugar over the past 30 years or so, we've seen unseasonably warm winters. We've seen incredibly winter-like seasonable seasons with over 90, 100 inches of snow," Jochul said.
Both resorts are planning now to keep good skiing available in North Carolina.
They have shoveled big money into snow-making equipment.
"We've made millions over the past 10 years in investments," Freeman said. "If we could predict the future in 5 or 10 years would put us out of business, we wouldn't have made that kind of investment."
Moreover, they say, snow-making technology has improved, allowing heaps of snow to be produced in short spurts of time. Once on the ground, man-made snow it sticks around even through warm spells.
"Even if it's 70 degrees, we still have an incredible product here and are really able to consistently make snow," Freeman said.
A drawback, however, is the environmental impact. Snow-making machines demand a lot of energy and a lot of water.
"The more we rely on artificial snow, the more we rely on water and water resources, which can be scarce in many areas," Dello said.
Jonathan Casper, a professor at North Carolina State University who studies sports and the natural environment, points out that man-made snow isn't the solution for some activities, like cross-country skiing.
"You've just got to account for a shorter season," he said. "Maximize the amount of time you'll be able to participate in such sports, because what we're going to see overall is a shortening of the winter season."
That change could limit the cities in contention for Winter Olympics of the future. Cities that have previously held the games might no longer have the right conditions.
"Very few of them now would be able to host the Olympics the same way they did," Casper said. "We've seen this in the past few Olympics where snow pack has been an issue."
