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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Environment
Oliver Milman

Ski resorts’ era of plentiful snow may be over due to climate crisis, study finds

Skiers pass on an artificial ski snow slope on a mild winter day in the Barèges ski resort, Hautes-Pyrenees, south-western France, this month.
Skiers pass on an artificial ski snow slope on a mild winter day in the Barèges ski resort, Hautes-Pyrenees, south-western France, this month. Photograph: Stéphane Mahé/Reuters

If you have been enjoying lushly covered mountains by skiing or snowboarding this winter then such an experience could soon become a receding memory, with a new study finding that an era of reliably bountiful snow has already passed due to the climate crisis.

The US ski industry has lost more than $5bn over the past two decades due to human-caused global heating, the new research has calculated, due to the increasingly sparse nature of snowfall on mountain ranges. Previous studies have shown that in many locations precipitation is now coming in the form of rain, rather than snow, due to warming temperatures.

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