{"id":2332,"date":"2017-10-29T21:07:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T20:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/?p=2332"},"modified":"2017-10-29T21:14:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T20:14:16","slug":"global-warming-delays-resort-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/snow-conditions\/global-warming-delays-resort-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Global warming delays resort opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think most skiers know global warming is happening, whatever the reasons for it. The most ominous indication is the retreat of glaciers. Over successive seasons it is easy to see how much glaciers have shrunk at many ski resorts.<\/p>\n

In addition something has been going on in recent seasons with early season snow conditions. Whether that is down to factors other than global warming is debatable – it may just be a cyclical thing that will fix itself, but that seems unduly optimistic. Lower resorts must be particularly concerned, especially as they consider the long-term investments they may need to remain competitive with other resorts. <\/p>\n

So will 2017 kick off a great early season and buck the trend of recent seasons?<\/p>\n

It doesn’t look good. For the first time in 40 years Les Deux Alpes will not open for autumn skiing on its glacier.
\n\"4
\nThe London Times quotes Thierry Hugues, the head of the resort\u2019s piste management team, to explain why. \u201cThe situation is exceptional,\u201d he is quoted as saying. \u201cGiven the low rainfall that we had throughout the year, a very hot summer and a very dry autumn, the glacier does not have enough snow cover to welcome our customers safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other traditional season openers have, however, opened. In Switzerland Zermatt<\/a>, Saas-Fee<\/a> and Engelberg<\/a> have glacier skiing, recently joined by Diavolezza<\/a> and Glacier 3000<\/a>. A number of other Swiss winter sports resorts will open at least some of their slopes in the next few weeks, Andermatt<\/a>, Arosa<\/a>-Lenzerheide<\/a>, Davos-<\/a>Klosters<\/a> and Flims\/Laax<\/a> the first weekend of November, the 4 Vallees<\/a> the following weekend and a whole clutch of other resorts before the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Unless global warming or other weather-related conditions intervene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think most skiers know global warming is happening, whatever the reasons for it. The most ominous indication is the retreat of glaciers. Over successive seasons it is easy to see how much glaciers have shrunk at many ski resorts. In addition something has been going on in recent seasons with early season snow conditions. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Global warming delays resort opening”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[110,30,114,325,8,127,149,346,9,13,323,37,74,180,33,113,40,158,22],"class_list":["post-2332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snow-conditions","tag-4-vallees","tag-andermatt","tag-arosa","tag-ba","tag-davos","tag-diavolezza","tag-engelberg","tag-glacier-3000","tag-klosters","tag-lenzerheide","tag-les-deux-alpes","tag-ski","tag-ski-resort","tag-ski-resorts","tag-skiing","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-winter-sports","tag-zermatt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2335,"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}