Impact of Climate Change on Natural Snow Reliability, Snowmaking Capacities, and Wind Conditions of Ski Resorts in Northeast Turkey: A Dynamical Downscaling Approach

Abstract

Many ski resorts worldwide are going through deteriorating snow cover conditions due to anthropogenic warming trends. As the natural and the artificially supported, i.e., technical, snow reliability of ski resorts diminish, the industry approaches a deadlock. For this reason, impact assessment studies have become vital for understanding vulnerability of ski tourism. This study considers three resorts at one of the rapidly emerging ski destinations, Northeast Turkey, for snow reliability analyses. Initially one global circulation model is dynamically downscaled by using the regional climate model RegCM4.4 for 1971-2000 and 2021-2050 periods along the RCP4.5 greenhouse gas concentration pathway. Next, the projected climate outputs are converted into indicators of natural snow reliability, snowmaking capacity, and wind conditions. The results show an overall decline in the frequencies of naturally snow reliable days and snowmaking capacities between the two periods. Despite the decrease, only the lower altitudes of one ski resort would face the risk of losing natural snow reliability and snowmaking could still compensate for forming the base layer before the critical New Year's week. On the other hand, adverse high wind conditions improve as to reduce the number of lift closure days at all resorts. Overall, this particular region seems to be relatively resilient against climate change.

A critical review of climate change risk for ski tourism

“…hourly resolution and also incorporating air humidity), the separate analysis of natural snow depth and snowmaking potential does not allow for an integrated calculation of snowmelt and total snow depth. Similar non-integrated approaches were applied for Switzerland (Rixen et al, 2011), New Zealand Hreinsson, 2012, Bulgaria, andTurkey (Demiroglu, 2016;Demiroglu, Turp, Ozturk, & Kurnaz, 2016). Pons, López-Moreno, Rosas-Casals, and Jover (2015) integrated snowmaking in an assessment for the Pyrenees, but in their approach snowmaking was only active on days when total snow depth was below a 30 cm threshold.…”

Climate Change Adaptation of Alpine Ski Tourism in Spain

“…Resorts with higher levels of vulnerability would need to better assess the potential use and feasibility of snowmaking technology as the main adaptation option in the medium and long term. This type of strategy is very well documented in the consulted literature (e.g., [15][16][17]20,21,42]), which also remarks its potential socio-economic and environmental impact and physical limitations. Taking the example of the resort of Leitariegos, where the artificial snow coverage over total length of runs reaches only 3.9%, the decision on whether invest in snowmaking equipment will benefit from the analysis of climate change impact.…”

“…This study showed that snowmaking is currently a very important adaptive tool to deal with climate variability and change, but also remarks the physical limits of current snowmaking technology. Demiroglu et al [17] focused on three resorts located in northeast Turkey by making use of a regional climate model to provide projections of changes in natural snow reliability, snowmaking capacity, and wind conditions under IPCC climate scenario RCP 4.5 and between the periods 1917-2000 and 2021-2050. Results indicate an overall decline in the frequencies of naturally snow reliable days and snowmaking capacities.…”

The Spatial Pattern of Ski Areas and Its Driving Factors in China: A Strategy for Healthy Development of the Ski Industry

“…The 100 days-principle proposed by Witmer considered that sufficient snow resources were the guarantee for the stability of ski areas, which required 100 days of snow depth above 30 cm annually, and at least 7 of every 10 years [71]. This rule was widely used in subsequent studies [71][72][73][74]. However, the average snow depth of 591 Chinese alpine ski areas and non-operational snow fields varied from 0 cm to 18 cm in the winter, 69% of the ski areas had snow depths of less than 1 cm; 27.7% had snow depths of 1-10 cm, and only 3.3% had snow depths of more than 10 cm.…”