Update: Best Bets for Finding the Snow

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 09 Desember 2012 | 17.35

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency

Forget racing down the slopes. The sport skiers have had to master in recent years has been chasing the snow.

Resorts in the United States reported the lowest average snowfall in 20 years last season, forcing half to open late and nearly half to close early, according to the National Ski Areas Association. In Europe, too, lack of snow and warm temperatures in the Alps in late 2011 contributed to a slow start to last season.

So what's a skier to do? Though it may not seem so, there is a clear strategy for finding snow, climatologists and other researchers say. Their recommendations are below.

AIM HIGH AND DRY

Some resorts in Colorado, like Vail and Aspen, are at an elevation that ensures that they remain cold. And even if there is little precipitation, their artificial snow is less likely to melt into slush. Last year, when snow didn't arrive in Aspen until Jan. 15, snow-making machines kept the slopes open, said Auden Schendler, vice president of sustainability for the Aspen Skiing Company.

Coastal resorts, like those in California, are more likely than some inland resorts to have real precipitation because they are close to the ocean. But as temperatures warm, that may not be a good thing — it is likely to arrive as rain, said Daniel Scott, the Canada Research Chair in Global Change and Tourism at the University of Waterloo.

Keep in mind that even at high-altitude resorts that are not coastal, like those in the Colorado Rockies, you can't escape a changing climate. There, warmer winters and lighter snowfall have forced seasons to end earlier. "One line from the backcountry ski world is: April is the new May," Mr. Schendler said. "You've lost a month."

GO NORTH

Higher latitude means colder weather, and thus a better chance of real snow that sticks around. Best bets for winter skiing are in the mountains of interior British Columbia, or Lake Louise in Banff, Alberta, Mr. Scott said. Ranges like Mont Tremblant could have better winter conditions than New England because of the latitude.

If you can bear the irony of taking a greenhouse-gas emitting plane in search of dwindling snow, another good option in the winter is still the Alps, last season's late start notwithstanding. They offer altitude, latitude and gorgeous scenery. Still, in the Swiss Alps, the average winter temperature is on the rise, increasing 2.43 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years, according to Christoph Marty, a climatologist with the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Switzerland. "I know it is a very small number," he said, but around freezing temperature, it is an important number. At the base of typical ski resorts in the Alps, where the temperature can hover around freezing, there is 20 percent fewer snow days compared with a few decades ago.

Mr. Marty's recommendation: "If you go to larger ski resorts, the chance is that they will have enough money to produce artificial snow."

BE SPONTANEOUS

With a warming climate comes more variation in weather patterns. That means that snow will come in great dumps, in increasingly intense storms. To find the snow these storms bring requires more than simply luck.

"It depends on how much of a ski addict you are," said Dr. Andrew Slater, a scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who runs the West-Wide Real-Time Snow Monitoring Web site. If you are hard-core and impulsive, he suggested scheduling your trip around forecasts a mere five to seven days out.

The risk-averse can use data as their guide. "If you don't have the luxury of making short-term decisions, you have to play statistics," Dr. Slater said. One good resource is Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University, which has been tracking snowfall since the late 1960s and has put the data on its Web site.

Perhaps, though, a simpler approach from Jeremy Jones, the snowboarder who founded the organization Protect Our Winters to push for action on climate change, is the one to adopt.

"It truly is a gift when we get these awesome storms and get the snow," Mr. Jones said. "Take advantage of it and embrace it."


Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Update: Best Bets for Finding the Snow

Dengan url

http://travelwisatawan.blogspot.com/2012/12/update-best-bets-for-finding-snow_9.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Update: Best Bets for Finding the Snow

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Update: Best Bets for Finding the Snow

sebagai sumbernya

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar

techieblogger.com Techie Blogger Techie Blogger