Is Changing Climate Sabotaging Olympic Skiers Like Mikaela Shiffrin?

Our local weather is unquestionably altering in response to human actions and Greenhouse Gases. There are additionally adjustments that occur on extra seasonal scales like drought. With that out of the way in which, let’s speak concerning the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. My spouse Ayana and I had been watching the enormous slalom competitors final night time. Famous U.S. snowboarding champion Mikaela Shiffrin went down solely 11 seconds into the course. I’m not a snowboarding skilled, however it’s my understanding that big slalom is her greatest occasion. At one level, I identified to my spouse that not one of the surrounding mountains had snow on them and that the snow on the course was artificially generated. Let’s discover how altering (seasonal and long-term) local weather could also be difficult some Olympic skiers.

The ski slopes for the Beijing Winter Olympics are literally in Yanqing, China, a suburb 45 miles northwest of the town. In keeping with Weather-Atlas.com, February receives probably the most snowfall days at that location (3.6 days), however the common quantity is barely 33 mm. For those who do the maths conversion, that’s only one.29 inches. For the yr, the placement solely receives about 7.8 inches of snowfall on common. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that Yanqing isn’t a very snowy place, and this season the area is in a meteorological drought too.

Due to the circumstances, Olympic organizers are utilizing a whole lot of synthetic snowmaking machines to make sure that there may be sufficient snow for the occasions. In keeping with NASA’s Earth Observatory website, “The water used to make the snow will get piped in from the close by Foyukou and Baihepu reservoirs.” The synthetic snow-laden ski routes are tucked amongst brown hillsides as seen within the NASA Landsat picture under. Nonetheless, the inclines are a number of the steepest at a 68-degree incline.

Right here’s the issue with the manufactured snow. Many skiers (however not all) and different Winter Olympic opponents have complained that synthetic snow turns into extraordinarily slick and icy. As we watched Shiffrin and different opponents final night time, the commentators alluded a number of occasions to the course situations however by no means particularly talked about the bogus snow. CNN’s Derek Van Dam just lately wrote, “French cross-country skier Clement Parisse, the bronze medal winner on the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, advised CNN that whereas it isn’t unusual to need to compete on human-made snow, it tends to develop into very slick and icy, which presents added challenges.” For some ski racing, College of Utah snow skilled, Jim Steenburgh, tweeted such situations may very well be preferable. Making snow can also be very useful resource intensive. It requires a number of power, water, and cash.

In keeping with Climate Central, “China skilled its hottest yr on document in 2021….Beijing skilled record-breaking heat final February, when temperatures climbed 40 °F above regular.” With persevering with drought situations within the Olympic area, the snowmaking course of is an costly (and loud) exercise. So why is the integrity and security of the sports activities being compromised? Many indicators recommend that local weather change is a driver. To begin with, there are only a few locations on the planet appropriate to host a Winter Olympics. Of the 19 locations which have hosted prior to now 70 years, they’re warming. Local weather Central analyses present that February temperatures have enhance by virtually 5 °F on common in these 19 venue places since 1950. In keeping with Berkeley Earth, that’s roughly 3 occasions the worldwide common warming fee. February temperatures within the Beijing space have been even hotter at 8.9 °F since 1950.

A 2022 study revealed within the scholarly journal Present Points in Tourism additionally confirmed that the winter season appears to be shortening and warming. These adjustments have led to a rise in unfair-unsafe situations over the previous 70 years based on the examine authors. Beneath the worst-case state of affairs local weather projections, the examine additionally reveals that the variety of future appropriate host websites from a weather-climate perspective declines to 4 by mid-century.: Oslo, Lack Placid, Sapporo, and Lillehammer, Oslo, and Sapporo). By 2100, solely Sapporo is appropriate.

With these sorts of numbers, I see much more pretend snow on the Olympic horizon on the horizon, and based on some athletes, that’s not a superb factor. From my lens, dashing down a mountain going round markers is already fairly difficult in itself. And now this.