Climate change cost U.S. ski industry billions, study says, and future depends on emissions

DENVER (AP) — U.S. ski areas lost $5 billion from 2000 to 2019 as a result of human-caused climate change and could lose around $1 billion annually in the 2050s depending on how much emissions are reduced, a new study found.

People “may not care about the loss of the species halfway around the world, or a flood that’s happening in some other part of the world. But sport is often something people care about,” said Daniel Scott, a scientist at the University of Waterloo and study co-author. "And they can see some of these changes happening.”

Warm weather has upended winter recreation across North America and Europe this year, cancelling a 250-mile dog sled race in Maine, opening golf courses in Minnesota, and requiring snow saved from the previous year to run a ski race in Austria. A warm, dry El Niño weather pattern coupled with global warming is to blame, scientists say, and has put the threat to winter on center stage.

“It’s a now problem, not a future-looking problem,” said Auden Schendler, senior vice-president of sustainability at Aspen One, a ski and hospitality company that helped fund the study, published in Current Issues in Tourism.