ABSTRACT:In this paper, we present a new publicly available high-resolution daily precipitation gridded dataset developed for peninsular Spain and the Balearic islands using 2756 quality-controlled stations (this dataset is referred to as Spain02 ). The grid has a regular 0.2°(approx. 20 km) horizontal resolution and spans the period from 1950 to 2003. Different interpolation methods were tested using a cross-validation approach to compare the resulting interpolated values against station data: kriging, angular distance weighting, and thin plane splines. Finally, the grid was produced applying the kriging method in a two-step process. First, the occurrence was interpolated using a binary kriging and, in a second step, the amounts were interpolated by applying ordinary kriging to the occurrence outcomes. This procedure is similar to the interpolation method used to generate the E-OBS gridded data -the state-of-the-art publicly available high-resolution daily dataset for Europe -which was used in this study for comparison purposes. Climatological statistics and extreme value indicators from the resulting grid were compared to those from the 25 km E-OBS dataset using the observed station records as a reference. Spain02 faithfully reproduces climatological features such as annual precipitation occurrence, accumulated amounts and variability, whereas E-OBS has some deficiencies in the southern region. When focusing on upper percentiles and other indicators of extreme precipitation regimes, Spain02 accurately reproduces the amount and spatial distribution of the observed extreme indicators, whereas E-OBS data present serious limitations over Spain due to the sparse data used in this region. As extreme values are more sensitive to interpolation, the dense station coverage of this new data set was crucial to get an accurate reproduction of the extremes.

Ski tourism is a multi-billion dollar international market attracting between 300 and 350 million annual skier visits. With its strong reliance on specific climatic conditions, the ski industry is regarded as the tourism market most directly and immediately affected by climate change. A critical review of the 119 publications that have examined the climate change risk of ski tourism in 27 countries is provided. This growing and increasingly diverse literature has projected decreased reliability of slopes dependent on natural snow, increased snowmaking requirements, shortened and more variable ski seasons, a contraction in the number of operating ski areas, altered competitiveness among and within regional ski markets, and attendant implications for ski tourism employment and values of vacation property real estate values. The extent and timing of these consequences depend on the rate of climate change and the types of adaptive responses by skiers as well as ski tourism destinations and their competitors. The need to understanding differential climate risk grows as investors and financial regulators increasingly require climate risk disclosure at the destination and company scale. Key knowledge gaps to better assist ski tourism destinations to adapt to future climate risk are identified.

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In this study we quantified the sensitivity of snow to climate warming in selected mountain sites having a Mediterranean climate, including the Pyrenees in Spain and Andorra, the Sierra Nevada in Spain and California (USA), the Atlas in Morocco, and the Andes in Chile. Meteorological observations from high elevations were used to simulate the snow energy and mass balance (SEMB) and calculate its sensitivity to climate. Very different climate sensitivities were evident amongst the various sites. For example, reductions of 9%-19% and 6-28 days in the mean snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow duration, respectively, were found per°C increase. Simulated changes in precipitation (±20%) did not affect the sensitivities. The Andes and Atlas Mountains have a shallow and cold snowpack, and net radiation dominates the SEMB; and explains their relatively low sensitivity to climate warming. The Pyrenees and USA Sierra Nevada have a deeper and warmer snowpack, and sensible heat flux is more important in the SEMB; this explains the much greater sensitivities of these regions. Differences in sensitivity help explain why, in regions where climate models project relatively greater temperature increases and drier conditions by 2050 (such as the Spanish Sierra Nevada and the Moroccan Atlas Mountains), the decline in snow accumulation and duration is similar to other sites (such as the Pyrenees and the USA Sierra Nevada), where models project stable precipitation and more attenuated warming. The snowpack in the Andes (Chile) exhibited the lowest sensitivity to warming, and is expected to undergo only moderate change (a decrease of <12% in mean SWE, and a reduction of < 7 days in snow duration under RCP 4.5). Snow accumulation and duration in the other regions are projected to decrease substantially (a minimum of 40% in mean SWE and 15 days in snow duration) by 2050.

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Abstract. Climate change is increasingly regarded as a threat for winter tourism due to the combined effect of decreasing natural snow amounts and decreasing suitable periods for snowmaking. The present work investigated the snow reliability of 175 ski resorts in France (Alps and Pyrenees), Spain and Andorra under past and future conditions using state-of-the-art snowpack modelling and climate projections using Representative Concentration Pathways RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The natural snow reliability (i.e. without snowmaking) elevation showed a significant spatial variability in the reference period (1986–2005) and was shown to be highly impacted by the ongoing climate change. The reliability elevation using snowmaking is projected to rise by 200 to 300 m in the Alps and by 400 to 600 m in the Pyrenees in the near future (2030–2050) compared to the reference period for all climate scenarios. While 99 % of ski lift infrastructures exhibit adequate snow reliability in the reference period when using snowmaking, a significant fraction (14 % to 25 %) may be considered in a critical situation in the near future. Beyond the mid-century, climate projections highly depend on the scenario with either steady conditions compared to the near future (RCP2.6) or continuous decrease in snow reliability (RCP8.5). Under RCP8.5, our projections show that there would no longer be any snow-reliable ski resorts based on natural snow conditions in the French Alps and Pyrenees (France, Spain and Andorra) at the end of the century (2080–2100). For this time period and this scenario, only 24 resorts are projected to remain reliable with snowmaking, all being located in the Alps.