Mountain melt

Scenes like this may be less and less common as global warming leaves some Western ski slopes bare in coming decades.

A new study examines the future snowpack at two well-known Rocky Mountain ski resorts under various climate-change scenarios. The long-term prognosis is not good, especially for Park City, Utah.

Under the worst-case projection -- involving the highest greenhouse gas emissions and temperature increases -- snow could completely disappear from Park City slopes by 2100. Winter will be the rainy season. Even under less dire scenarios, researchers concluded that only the top of Park City Mountain Resort will still be skiable by the end of the century.

Aspen, Colo., fared better, as it is expected to experience less warming than Park City and is at a higher elevation. The snowline will move upslope. But in 2100 the top of the mountain will still have enough snow for a run through the powder under the high-emission scenario.

Other ski areas in the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Mountains are likely to be similarly affected, according to one of the researchers,  University of Colorado at Boulder geography professor Mark Williams.

Resort owners can counter the trend by expanding to higher elevation areas and making more snow. But that will require more water and energy use, the study notes, calling into question "the economic feasibility of some ski areas in a warming climate."

Along with Williams, Brian Lazar of Stratus Consulting in Boulder, Colo., and Carmen de Jong of the University of Savoy in France wrote the paper, recently presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.    

-- Bettina Boxall

Photo: On the slopes at Park City, Utah. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Kristap]

The part that was not included is we can do something about climate change, like Park City Mountain Resort is. The reason we had Brian Lazar do the study for us is so that we could know how to best reduce our carbon footprint. You can read the executive summary that he put together for us here : http://www.parkcitymountain.com/sos

[sheila]

gee, Krista, all the other ecosystems that are slaughtered for your "offsets" really thank you. the Mojave, a fantastic carbon sink when left intact, is being dynamited, bulldozed, poisoned, dehydrated and permanently, irreversibly destroyed so that playgrounds like yours can buy your way out of your pollution and over-consumption. or didn't that occur to you? did you think that ecosystems enjoy being paved over, and all the species killed, so you can buy REC's instead of ACTUALLY managing your consumption by changing the way you live and operate? Industrial Wind uses 50 acres of land for every MW of power. You call that "green?"

you've got to think beyond the sound byte. "renewable" energy is only good if it does NOT kill off another functioning ecosystem. as much as i love Park City, I'm not willing to kill Joshua Tree so you can feel less guilty about polluting and trumpet your eco-friendliness. Deserts and plains are just as important as mountains - they are not some sort of an accidental or failed ecosystems, so why should they bear the full weight of your activities up there in recreation-ville?

i'm glad you are changing lightbulbs and working on a few other conservation initiatives, because implementing point of use reductions and generation - right there where you need them - are the answer, not deflecting your destruction onto an ecosystem that has fewer lobbyists. Install your own microwind on your buildings up there if you want wind power. Because of Big Energy's domination of the clean energy sector, RECs don't care if power is generated carefully and thoughtfully (like rooftop solar) or ruthlessly and toxically (like Industrial Wind and Industrial Solar), so why not insist, with your considerable purchasing power, upon renewable energy that is ONLY produced in an environmentally responsible way?