The ski and snowboard industry is scared

Last winter, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) held just over 600 events in all disciplines at 166 venues. 26 of them were canceled because of the weather – lack of snow, rain and other signs of a warming world. The industry is rightly shaking in its ski boots.

“Spoiled winter holidays and canceled sporting events are – quite literally – the tip of the climate change iceberg,” said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo in a press release announcing the first partnership between the United Nations and the WMO with a sports organization announced. FIS and WMO want to work together to “raise awareness of the fact that winter sports and tourism face a bleak future due to climate change”.

The noise surrounding winter sports seems to be getting louder in a hurry. The International Olympic Committee is already scrambling to find suitable venues for the Winter Games, recently awarding the 2030 and 2034 events to the French Alps and Salt Lake City, respectively, but admits that climate change “will be a major challenge for us becomes”. Glaciers, on which many ski resorts and other winter sports rely, are shrinking rapidly around the world – so much so that countries are even redrawing their borders to reflect the changing landscape. At the upper end of possible warming scenarios, up to 98 percent of European ski resorts would not have enough snow cover without extensive snowmaking. It's a bleak, rocky future.

The WMO-FIS Memorandum of Understanding commits organizations to a wide range of activities, generally aimed at raising awareness of the risks faced by the winter sports industry. The first is already planned for November 7th, when more than 100 national ski associations, together with venue managers and event organizations, will take part in a webinar on the possible effects of climate change.

“Glacier retreat, reduced snow and ice cover, and permafrost thawing are having significant impacts on mountain ecosystems, communities, and economies,” Saulo said, “and will have increasingly severe impacts locally, nationally, and globally in the centuries to come level.”