• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
REVEALED: Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Knew of Toxic Seepage at Kearl Mine for Years, Didn’t Tell First Nation October 3, 2023
Oil and Gas, Buildings Drive 2.1% Rise in Canada’s Climate Pollution October 2, 2023
Shell CEO Doubles Down on Renewable Cuts Despite Internal Pushback October 2, 2023
Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds October 2, 2023
UAE Holds Major Oil and Gas Conference Before Hosting COP 28 Climate Summit October 2, 2023
Next
Prev

Low snow cover threatens Swiss ski resorts

February 27, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

 

The effects of continued global warming on Alpine snow cover could have a devastating impact on Switzerland’s winter sports industry.

LONDON, 27 February, 2017 – Switzerland, one of Europe’s principal winter sports destinations, expects the impact of climate change will leave many of its mountains short of snow cover by the end of the century.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

The prospect illustrates the urgent need for climate scientists to be able to develop more detailed forecasting methods that are tailored as much to regional trends as to global ones.

Switzerland couldn’t get enough snow for a time recently, although falls last month mean that parts of the Alps are now covered with fresh powder and are thronged with tourists. But the Swiss side of the Alps had the driest December since record-keeping began over 150 years ago.

A study in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere suggests that the snow drought will intensify, with bare slopes soon becoming much more common.

The study, by Swiss scientists based at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) and the CRYOS Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale, shows that the Alps could lose 70% of their snow cover by 2100. But if global warming is kept below 2°C, only 30% would be lost.

Shorter ski season

The research also shows that the Alpine winter season, when natural snow is deep enough for winter sports, will shorten.

The ski season could start two weeks to a month later than now. And without a cut in greenhouse gas emissions, enough snow cover for winter sports will by 2100 be assured only at heights above 2,500 metres.

“The Alpine snow cover will recede anyway, but our future emissions will control by how much,” says the lead author, Christoph Marty, an SLF research scientist.

The researchers know that global warming will raise Alpine temperatures significantly, but they are unsure about how it will affect snowfall.

Most of their climate models project slightly increasing winter precipitation towards the end of the century. But the simultaneous temperature increase may mean it falls not as snow, but as rain.

The projections show that the Alpine snow layer will become less deep for all elevations, time periods and emission scenarios.

The researchers write: “The most affected elevation zone for climate change is located below 1,200 metres, where the simulations show almost no continuous snow cover towards the end of the century.”

“The Alpine snow cover will recede anyway,
but our future emissions will control by how much”

The worrying significance of these findings for the winter sports industry is that about a quarter of the ski resorts in the Alps are located below this altitude.

Resorts at higher altitudes could also see drastic reductions in snow depth. If global warming is not kept below 2°C, snow depth could decrease by about 40% by the end of the century, the report says – even for elevations above 3,000 metres.

Shallower snow and a shorter season will affect winter tourism, on which many Alpine villages depend heavily.

But the expected changes will also alter how much water flows into Alpine rivers, affecting downstream irrigation, power supplies and shipping.

Nearly 1,000 miles to the north, there is concern in Norway about the effect that rising temperatures will have on one distinctive area.

Researchers who simulated the history of the Hardangerjøkulen ice cap in southern Norway over the last 4,000 years to see how it had responded to climate change have concluded it is now “exceptionally sensitive” to warming, and its days may be numbered.

Glaciers melted

Their study, also reported in The Cryosphere, included the mid-Holocene period about 6,000 years ago, when summer temperatures at high northern latitudes were 2-3°C warmer than today. Most, if not all, of Norway’s glaciers melted away during this period.

The researchers were from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bergen, and from the Netherlands and the US

Henning Åkesson, a PhD candidate at the Bjerknes Centre, says: “Present day Hardangerjøkulen is in a very vulnerable state, and our study of its history over the last several thousand years shows that the ice cap may change drastically in response to relatively minor changes in climate conditions.”

Every year, winter snow covers a glacier before melting in the summer. At a certain point on the glacier, the competition between snow accumulation and snowmelt is balanced. Glaciologists call this the equilibrium line altitude (ELA), and it is roughly equivalent to the snow line.

What is special with Hardangerjøkulen and similar ice caps, Åkesson says, is their flat topography. At first, the climb is steep, but higher up things get much easier. Much of Hardangerjøkulen’s area is close to the present ELA, so a small change between winter snow and summer melt will affect a very large part of the ice cap.

Åkesson says: “The topography and present climate is such that we soon expect yearly net melt over the entire ice cap. This has already happened a few times in recent years. In the near future we expect this to occur much more often and, with this, the demise of Hardangerjøkulen will accelerate.

“Today, the ice is more than 300 metres thick at places, which may sound like a lot. But the implication of our study is that if climate warming continues, this ice cap may disappear before the end of the century.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
53
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
67
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
34

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Iota 9/Wikimedia Commons

‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission

September 28, 2023
321
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
857
Solarimo/pixabay

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

October 2, 2023
211
Power lines, Mississauga, Canada

Two First Nations Groups Vie to Build Northern Ontario Power Line

September 28, 2023
174
Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
728
McDonald's/flickr

McDonald’s Failing to Follow Through on Climate Promises, Critics Say

December 17, 2021
2.6k

Recent Posts

jasonwoodhead23/flickr

REVEALED: Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Knew of Toxic Seepage at Kearl Mine for Years, Didn’t Tell First Nation

October 3, 2023
1
Dawn Ellner/flickr

Oil and Gas, Buildings Drive 2.1% Rise in Canada’s Climate Pollution

October 2, 2023
2
Ramon FVelasquez/Wikipedia

Shell CEO Doubles Down on Renewable Cuts Despite Internal Pushback

October 2, 2023
2
Northvolt plant in Sweden, Spisen/wikimedia commons

Quebec Lands $7B Battery Gigafactory Investment from Sweden’s Northvolt

October 2, 2023
2
YouTube

UAE Holds Major Oil and Gas Conference Before Hosting COP 28 Climate Summit

October 3, 2023
8
GFDL/Wikimedia Commons

Clean Energy Funding Isn’t Just About Money, Policy Expert Warns

October 2, 2023
4
Next Post

Inequalities fuel human impacts on climate

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}