Will climate change mean the end of the snowy weather?
Niwa figures show this winter was one of the warmest on record , with some sites recording half their normal snow depths. Nikki Macdonald investigates whether New Zealand's skifields can weather a warming world. On the fourth day, Treble Cone base operations manager Ross Whitelaw felt the need to explain. It was August 2 and there should have been prime midwinter skiing conditions. Instead, the Kiwis who flocked to the Queenstown Lakes region to slide down the white stuff had faced four consecutive days of a big fat closed sign. In a Facebook video filmed from his skidoo, a doleful Whitelaw explained that rain and warm wind had melted the snow pack, making it so soft you could punch right through to the ground. Basically the snow has got so full of moisture its lost its cohesiveness and its just falling off. READ MORE: * All you need know about New Zealand's ski fields * No snow, no worries: Ski fields chase summer tourism dollars * What skiing was like on Coronet Peak in 1947 What they really needed, he said, were significantly colder temperatures. Up country at Canterbury club field Craigieburn, skiers were also waiting for enough snow to open for the season. Where a frosty icing should have covered the slopes, great swaths of rock stood bare and brown. The field finally opened 21 days later, with warnings to bring old rockhopper skis. It closed again the following day. Still not enough snow. But walking is good for you, the snow report mused. One soggy or scarce snow pack does not climate change make. But it does provide a window on what the future might look like for a ski industry facing predictions of receding snowlines, warmer temperatures and more rain. Since immigrant Norwegian goldminers skied to access diggings in the 1860s, Kiwis have been hitting the slopes. The first club skifields were set up in 1913 and the first commercial ski tow was installed at Coronet Peak in Queenstown in 1947. Skiing has become big business, with 1.6 million participants in 2017. And it's not just Kiwis the Queenstown Lakes fields attract thousands of Aussies for winter breaks. A 2005 study estimated skiers pump $92.8 million into the Queenstown regions economy. But globally skifields are already beginning to feel the effects of a warming world, leading to some extreme responses. In February, French resort Luchon-Superbagneres used a helicopter to shift 50 tonnes of snow from its upper reaches to cover slopes bared by a mild winter. Officials called it an exceptional emergency operation. But could this become the new norm? Snow scientist Jordy Hendrikx has investigated how climate change could affect New Zealand skifields. He grew up skiing Mt Hutt and the club fields around Christchurch, but now lives in powder-pumped Montana, in the United States. His 2012 study showed climate change would result in less snow, shorter snow seasons and a higher proportion of moisture falling as rain rather than snow. The details depend on how high the field is, and how good a job we do of curbing carbon emissions. By the 2040s, snow at 1000m the lower limit of some skifields could reduce by between 3 and 44 per cent. At 2000m the upper reaches of most commercial fields the range is anything from an 8 per cent increase to a fall of almost one-quarter. Under the worst-case scenario for the 2090s, snow at 1000m could thin by up to 80 per cent and snow cover at 2000m slopes could halve. With most ski resorts already spanning all the skiable area, from a base at the snowline to tows edging towards the summit, there's no room to chase a retreating snowline. Snow scarcity will become increasingly problematic over time, Hendrikx concludes. There will still be bumper years, but bad years will become more frequent. One saving grace for New Zealand is were much better off than Australia, so climate change could have the unexpected consequence of enticing more Aussies here. But there is one solution snowmaking. How long have you got? I ask Paul Anderson, boss of NZ Ski, which runs the Mt Hutt, Coronet Peak and Remarkables ski areas. I think weve got a long time, he says. In the last two years we've opened two chairlifts that are going to be in service for 30-40 years. We're still investing with an eye to operating in that kind of timeframe. While climate change is a threat that promises more variable snow conditions, its one theyre already managing for, Anderson says. A 2003-14 analysis of season length at NZ Ski's fields found a lot of variability between years but some downward trend. However, Anderson reckons seasons are probably longer today than in the 1970s and 80s. Coronet Peak now opens every year in the second week of June, whereas a lousy snow year in the 80s could delay opening until August. The reason is the industrys massive investment in snowmaking guns that turn water and energy into snow. Coronet Peak alone has 221 snowmaking machines up from 141 seven years ago. In an average year, they're used to top up thinning natural snow. In a terrible snow year, they paint white ribbons of skiable trail on bare ground. One thing that surprised Hendrikx about his research was the ability of snowmaking to compensate for the ski days lost by reducing natural snow. In the 2040s, even under a high-emissions scenario, snowmaking could take all the main commercial fields beyond the 100 snow days often considered the threshold for viability. Planning documents for the country's major skifields show snowmaking figures prominently in their plans. Whakapapa skifield, on Mt Ruapehu, already has a 25,000 cubic-metre reservoir to make snow. Its 10-year development plan proposes increasing its water take from the Waipuna Stream, or building another reservoir, to extend snowmaking. Its sister field, Turoa, uses a 45,000m3 reservoir to make snow from early June to the end of August, by which time the tank is near empty. Its development plan says the field needs a new water take or two new reservoirs, of 50,000m3 and 40,000m3 to expand snowmaking. Ruapehu Alpine Lifts did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But just because you can, does that mean you should? Yes, you can stave off the impacts of climate change by increasing your technology and generating snow at these lower elevations, Hendrikx says. But the amount of energy and water it takes to do that is that ethically a wise thing to be doing? You are solving your local problem, but youre increasing the global problem by using more energy to solve that problem. So I do point towards technology as the way we can mitigate. But its not necessarily the right way to mitigate. Energy and water use varies from snow machine to snow machine. The Highland snowmaker billed as North America's most popular fan snowmaker needs at least 570 litres of water a minute. Traditionally, snow guns need freezing temperatures to convert water to snow, limiting their usefulness in a warming world. As NZ Skis Paul Anderson explains, snowmaking depends on both temperature and humidity the drier the conditions, the warmer it can be. I've been at Mt Hutt when it's been 15 or 20 per cent humidity and we've been making snow at 4 degrees Celsius. Similarly, I've been on mountains where it's been -4degC and we haven't been able to make snow because of high humidity. But new technology means skifields can now make snow at temperatures of more than 20C. TechnoAlpin's warm temperature snowmaker Snowfactory is basically an industrial ice maker, shredding ice and spitting it out into piles, which can be moved around the slopes. Whakapapa installed one in 2017 and plans another. Coronet Peak included plans to install one in its application to extend its consent for another 40 years. The accompanying environmental impact assessment signalled plans to make a skiable slope for four months over summer. While being able to make snow even on a warm summers day might seem like the ski industry has climate change beaten, that comes at a cost, both in money and energy. According to some estimates, the Snowfactory uses less water than a traditional snow gun, but four to five times the energy. Otago University physicist Inga Smith, who worked at Coronet Peak in the 1990s, opposed the field's Snowfactory application. Given the high alpine nature of Coronet Peak, with a lack of natural water on the mountain (water is diverted from streams and/or pumped to reservoirs), in a warming climate this seems a strange plan, she wrote. She estimated that, with a water temperature of 5C and an air temperature of 15C, it would take 4416 kWh per day to produce 207 cubic metres of snow. Over two days of continuous use, that's more electricity than the average New Zealand house uses in a year. The problem, as Hendrikx points out, is that the warmer it gets, the less efficient snowmaking becomes. At the very very cold, dry end, you can make huge amounts of snow. But by the time you get down to very warm, wet conditions, you're making very small amounts of snow for a large input of water and power. So I think there's some broader conversations that need to happen. Is this really what we want to be doing? Anderson admits snowmaking takes a decent amount of energy and a decent amount of water. However, most of that energy comes from renewable sources and Coronet Peak recycles water, collecting snow melt and returning it to the reservoirs. He doesn't expect Coronet to really make snow for summer skiing, because it would melt so quickly that he doubts it would be economically viable. In her 2013 research into snowmaking sustainability , Debbie Hopkins concluded snowmaking as a medium to long-term climate adaptation would be constrained by atmospheric conditions, access to resources such as water, and public perception. It's that public perception that Marian Krogh is working to change. For 15 years, skiing has been her life. The 34-year-old has been working back-to-back winters as a ski instructor in Aspen and Wanaka, competing in free ski competitions and tripping around the globe ski-mountaineering. In 20 years, she expects her ski instructor job will still exist, but for six months of the year instead of nine. While everyone in New Zealand knows about climate change, theres a lot of sitting around talking about how climate change sucks, but not much action, Krogh says. That led her to set up a New Zealand chapter of global climate change advocacy organisation Protect Our Winters. Last year, they helped 500 people make submissions to the Zero Carbon bill. Krogh wants to see resorts put more effort into reducing their carbon footprint, including by making bus transport to the fields cheaper than driving. While snowmaking could help Kiwi ski areas adapt to climate change, its not a cure-all, she says. Water is becoming more and more of a precious resource. There are some good systems where they recycle the water to make the snow, but it might come to a point in the future where we just really need that water for other things and we can't justify making snow with it.