Swiss Ski Season Shortens By 12 Days In Last 20 Years - Ski Industry

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"There is a long list of threats facing the French winter sports market," said Eric Guilpart, marketing manager for the Compagnie des Alpes, which has been looking at future economic prospects for the resorts. "Climate change, population ageing and the opening of markets are three of the most important factors," he said.

Over the past decade, resorts across Europe have expressed increasing concern about the early melting of the snow cover. The Swiss Association of Winter Sports Resorts says that in the past 20 years the length of the season in the Swiss mountains has been shortened by 12 days due to the increase in temperature. In the French city of Grenoble, the Snow Research Centre said that a 1.8 degree increase in temperature in France would shorten the annual length of snow cover at above 1,500 metres (4,500 feet) to 135 days from 170 (minus 20 percent) in the northern Alps, and to 90 days from 120 (minus 25 percent) in the southern Alps.

"Resorts are going to have to prepare for some radical changes in the 30 to 40 years to come," said Guilpart. "Though they may be unable to 'transport' villages higher up, they will have to be able to take clients to places where there is snow, by linking low-lying resorts to slopes higher up using mass carrier systems."

Resort managers, as well as manufacturers of skiing equipment, are having to adapt to the change for example by levelling slopes and planting grass there to enable skiers to practise the sport with a thin cover of only 20 centimetres of powder, instead of the current standard requirement of 70 centimetres to one metre of snow."

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2004/040117044343.fgy26esa.html