With less snow and faster melting, athletes see a future, and a planet, in peril.
The women’s World Cup Alpine ski season begins this weekend in Levi, Finland, where Mikaela Shiffrin, Petra Vlhova and an international field of stars will run two slalom races in temperatures that, finally and mercifully, will peak in the teens. This event comes five weeks after the first scheduled competition of the season was wiped out because rain softened the course on a glacier in Soelden, Austria, to the point that it became unsafe to ski.
For winter sports, that has a wide swath of ramifications. It means starting a ski season in October will become a less reliable proposition — even on a glacier. It means, according to a study released this year, that of the 22 cities that have hosted Winter Olympics, only one would remain a viable host by the end of this century unless global emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced dramatically.
From the archives: In the Netherlands, an iconic skating race — and a way of life — faces extinction from climate change On Nov. 12, the temperature in central Vermont reached into the 70s, and the skies soaked the Green Mountains with rain. The slopes at Killington Resort, which had been blown with man-made snow twice in October, turned brown again. Killington is scheduled to host a women’s World Cup giant slalom Nov. 26 and a slalom the following day.
“For the future, we absolutely need to review the dates because we need to have more guarantee,” Markus Waldner, the chief race director of the men’s World Cup circuit, told reporters then. “We have to observe the nature. We have this climate change. We had a very extremely warm summer, extremely warm autumn also. These are signals, and we need to respect this.”To stage the races at Killington, the course must be covered with at least two to three feet of snow, preferably between three and four.
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