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Le Monde
Le Monde
30 Aug 2023


Skiers prepare to hurtle down a slope at the Cordon ski resort in the French Alps on January 29, 2023.

Climate change is compromising the return of winter snow, threatening the future of ski resorts. At what pace? That question remains a source of controversy, particularly in the mountains. It's the subject of a scientific study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, on Monday, August 28, and co-authored by researchers mainly from the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and Météo-France. Their work does not set out a timeline, but models the consequences for Europe's mountains of increasing global warming, up to 4°C compared with the pre-industrial period.

"Our aim with this spatial and climatic modeling study – the first on this scale – is to take the heat out of the debate, moving beyond caricatured reactions in a transitional approach towards another economic model, but not with a disruptive perspective," said Hugues François (INRAE, Grenoble Alpes University), a specialist in regional planning. Whatever the scenario, it's the snowpack's "speed of retreat" that is of concern.

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With a warming of 1.5°C, 32% of Europe's 2,234 ski resorts would face a "very high risk" of snow shortages. The researchers have based this idea on the 20% of the most unfavorable years for packed natural snow, over the 1961-1990 reference period. At 2°C, 53% of resorts would be in the same situation, with 91% at 3°C and 98% at 4°C. The use of artificial snow reduces difficulties, but this varies according to the coverage rate chosen. If the rate is 75%, the risk still amounts to 57% of resorts for 3°C or 74% for 4°C.

These global data, covering 28 countries, take into account the frequency of snow-poor winters, as well as the altitude and exposure of slopes. For France, for example, the models show a clear drop in snow cover at altitudes of around 1,400 meters, suggesting a very different future for mid-mountain destinations and major high-altitude resorts.

To take account of the considerable diversity, the researchers subdivided Europe's mountain ranges. For the Alps, their forecasts indicate that in the event of a 3°C rise in temperature, 87% of resorts in Switzerland would face a very high risk of brown earth rather than immaculate white-colored winters, compared with the 5% concerned if warming were contained at 1°C. Under the same conditions, this figure would be 93% in France (instead of 4% at 1°C), 94% in Austria (rather than 6%), 100% in both Germany (versus 20%) and Italy (instead of 69%). If 75% of slopes are equipped with artificial snow, these rates are reduced to 26% in Switzerland, 42% in France and 64% in Germany. "We expected a more pessimistic result for France," said François. "I hope that not every country is going to conclude: we're not the most vulnerable, nor do we emit the most greenhouse gases."

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