Climate change effects on snow conditions in mainland Australia and adaptation at ski resorts through snowmaking

Abstract

We examined the effects of past and future climate change on natural snow cover in southeastern mainland Australia and assessed the role of snowmaking in adapting to projected changes in snow conditions. Snow-depth data from 4 alpine sites from 1957 to 2002 indicated a weak decline in maximum snow depths at 3 sites and a moderate decline in mid-to late-season snow depths (August to September). Low-impact and high-impact climate change scenarios were prepared for 2020 and 2050 and used as input for a climate-driven snow model. The total area with an average of at least 1 d of snow cover per year was projected to decrease by 10 to 39% by 2020, and by 22 to 85% by 2050. By 2020, the length of the ski season was projected to have decreased by 10 to 60%, while by 2050 the decrease was 15 to 99%. Based on target snow-depth profiles from May to September nominated by snowmaking managers at various ski resorts, the snow model simulated the amount of snow that is needed to be made each day, taking into account natural snowfall, snow-melt and the pre-existing natural snow depth. By the year 2020, an increase of 11 to 27% in the number of snow guns would be required for the low impact scenario, and 71 to 200% for the high impact scenario. This corresponds to changes in total snow volume of 5 to 17% for the low impact scenario to 23 to 62% for the high impact scenario. Therefore, with sufficient investment in snow guns, the Australian ski industry may be able to manage the effect of projected climate change on snow cover until at least 2020.KEY WORDS: Snow · Depth · Area · Duration · Australia · Climate · Change · Snowmaking Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherClim Res 35: [255][256][257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265][266][267][268][269][270] 2008 annual snow-cover extent since 1966, largely due to decreases in spring and summer snow cover since the mid-1980s over both the Eurasian and American continents (Robinson & Frei 2000). Surface observations for the northern hemisphere from show no significant change in winter snow extent, but a decrease in spring (Brown 2000). At most locations below 1800 m in northwestern USA, large decreases in waterequivalent snow depth from 1950-2000 coincide with significant increases in temperature, despite increases in precipitation (Groisman et al. 2004, Mote et al. 2005. Since the late 1940s, there has been a shift toward earlier snow-melt runoff in many rivers of northwestern America (Stewart et al. 2005).In the Australian region, there has been a warming of 0.9°C since 1900, most of which has occurred since 1950 (Nicholls & Collins 2006). Australian rainfall exhibits large annual and regional variability, including a decline in annual rainfall in the east since 1950 (Nicholls & Collins, 2006). Climate trends are likely to have had an effect on the Australian snowfields, but the large annual variability in snow season characteristics in the mainland Australian alpine region makes it difficult to detect trends. Fig. 1 shows ...

From barriers to limits to climate change adaptation: path dependency and the speed of change

“…The present physical barrier to snowmaking is the number of nights with suitable temperature and humidity. Unfortunately for the industry, projections of temperature change in the Australian Alps (Hennessy et al 2008) suggest that climate change will eliminate this environmental window for snowmaking even if the soft economic limit to water supply was overcome. This hard ecological limit means that the Australian ski tourism industry seems likely to be casualty of climate change.…”

Ecosystem Respiration in a Seasonally Snow-Covered Subalpine Grassland

“…Climate change projections for the Snowy Mountains of Australia are for increases in annual temperature by 2020 of 0.2 to 1.0 uC and a decrease in snow cover of 5 to 30 days (Hennessy et al, 2003(Hennessy et al, , 2008. These climate change projections are supported by historical analyses of snow depth at four alpine sites from 1957 to 2002 that indicated we have already experienced a decline in maximum snow depths at 3 (of 4) sites and a moderate decline in mid-to late-season snow depth (August to September).…”

“…These climate change projections are supported by historical analyses of snow depth at four alpine sites from 1957 to 2002 that indicated we have already experienced a decline in maximum snow depths at 3 (of 4) sites and a moderate decline in mid-to late-season snow depth (August to September). These trends probably reflect mid-to late-season snow depth being determined by temperature-dependent ablation (melt and evaporation), whereas the depth of early-season snow is determined by precipitation (Hennessy et al, 2003(Hennessy et al, , 2008. Irrespective of the size of changes and their cause, decreases in the duration of snow cover will affect ecosystem respiration.…”

“…To meet this aim we measured ecosystem respiration every month for two years during the snow-free season and twice a year for two years during the snow-covered season. The effect of snow and respiration at low temperatures are of particular interest in the Snowy Mountains given that climate change projections for the region are for 0.2 to 1.0 uC increases in annual temperature by 2020, accompanied by a 5-30 day decrease in the duration of snow cover (Hennessy et al, 2003(Hennessy et al, , 2008.…”

Environmental Management and Sustainable Labels in the Ski Industry: A Critical Review

“…It has been some time since this activity has been considered by international bodies as being one of the most vulnerable to climate change [1,2], although some authors have been studying this phenomenon and its implications for tourism and evaluating the implications of climate change for ski resorts and the responses adopted by the organizations in Europe [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], North America [10][11][12][13], Asia [14,15], Australia, and New Zealand [16,17]. Among all the "adaptive" strategies adopted by ski resorts-divided into technical, economic policy, institutional, managerial, planning, legal, and behavioral [18,19]-and in particular thanks to snowmaking installations [20][21][22], it has been partly possible to cope with the problem posed by the shortened ski season due to the lack of natural snow. Some researchers, basing their findings on provisional models for North American tourist destinations, affirm that not all mountain resorts will necessarily be interested in the phenomenon of climate change; consequently, the impact on the ski season may, in some cases, be only moderate [10,11,23].…”