Climate science makes it abundantly clear that winter as we know it is coming to an end. Despite the evidence, the global community – as a whole – continues as if everything is fine. The climate change negotiations that have been underway in Poland had progress blocked by key oil producing nations and those led by climate deniers, like Saudi Arabia, the USA and Russia. Yet there was barely any reaction from the community as vested interests put their profits ahead of the planet.

Denial does not make the problem go away. The evidence keeps building up, like this recent work looking at climate change impacts on ski resorts in the USA.

Writing for the Snowbrains website, Sydney Stephens looks at likely impacts of climate change on resorts in the USA. She says:

“Ski season is going to be shorter everywhere. Higher elevations will be especially important as trends continue, but all resorts will likely have to increase their reliance on snowmaking machines: but even these require certain conditions to make snow”.

“With higher elevations and a drier climate, ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains will be the least affected by these changes – while resorts in lower elevations, the northwest, and east US will take the biggest hits from warming annual temperatures and more severe and frequent spells of warm/cold fronts.  Some resorts may have to close all together”.

She uses data that was released in 2017 that shows that resorts will need to do more snow making earlier. The image above shows the average projected date from opening of the ski season to reach 450 hrs of snowmaking – Credit Wobus et al. 2017

As always, action is the antidote to despair: She says “we still have the ability to make a big difference in minimizing the negative effects of our climate in the near future”.

Here are some simple ideas on taking action on climate change.