Winter Sports: How Climate Change Is Affecting Ski Resorts

The Alps have always been a safe bet for skiers—until now. As a consequence of climate change, there is less snow, and slopes are remaining bare. A disaster for ski resorts, whose economy depends on winter sports. How are they dealing with this, and what are their future plans? Lukas Stege looks for answers in Germany and Austria.

00:00 Intro
01:11 Zugspitze, Germany
06:30 KIT Campus Alpin, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
08:41 Garmisch Classic ski resort
10:50 Dachstein Mountains, Austria

CREDITS:
Report: Lukas Stege, Holm Weber
Camera & Editing: Holm Weber
Executive producer: Christina Deicke
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to DW Travel

Would you like to find out more about DW Travel?

DW Travel is showing you the captivating world of travel. Come along with us to regions and cities in Germany, throughout Europe and to far-away destinations.

#skiing #germany #austria #wintersports #alps #climatechange

[creativeinfinitysyndrome]

I’m a ski instructor in Engelberg, Switzerland. There it rains in January up to 2000 meters above sea level. 20 years ago, we always had snow at around 1000 meters. Now it’s green in the village at 1100 meters and 10 degrees with sunshine. It was the same last year.

[jockelocopajdoman]

The weather has changed so much in the last 20-30 years. I remember 25 years ago, in Belgrade, we would have snow from November all the time until late March. Now theres maybe 7 days with snow, and it usually melts very fast. So sad

[MsJHK]

When I lived in Innsbruck, locals told me that in their youth 40-60 years ago there was sometimes so much snow that it was possible to ski from the mountains all the way to town. Innsbruck is approximately 574 meters above the sea level.

[DazDaz]

The lower altitude resorts are all doomed to close and nothing will happen in time to save them. Skiing will then just get even more expensive and exclusive at the resorts that survive.

[kokibr]

The fact that I started skiing late in my life makes me cry. I've missed so much. Here on the Balkans the change is much faster and more drastic. Today we broke all time records with 24 degrees C. Last year resorts opened in the end of January. On the other hand, summers are extremely warm, like 40+ degrees sometimes. Storms, floods, fires, draught, this is what we have more and more often.

[kfishing]

I live at Nice in France 1h far from the south of the French Alps. 15 years ago I could ski until the end of March-and April. Now just February and the snow has disapear. It main only on the sky line beacause of the snowmachine. 20 years ago, there was 1 bad year (hot) among 4-5 years. Now it's only 1 good year among 4-5 bad years.

[Xboxers]

I really hope we can turn things around. I can't imagine a world without snowboarding!

[zyanide]

I learned snowboarding in the Alps a bit more than 20 years ago. I am not Christian but, I when I was up in the glaciers, I thought, if there was God, the Alps is one of the best gift ever given to us.

This almost made me cry.

[bikeninja]

Here in Ottawa Gatineau, Feb 03 and it's +3 degrees, raining for the last few days and little to no snow so far this year. The river behind my house hasn't frozen fully for the past two years...only 10 years ago and we'd have 2 feet of snow and get 2 months of solid freeze in January/Febuary, always 1-2 weeks at the end of January with -40C. This is EXTREMELY disturbing to me and I know it will only continue to get worse every year. Never thought the effects would be so severe and so quick. Just imagine what things will be like in another 10-20 years.

[BigBurr-sosr]

I've seen Ski resorts using big machines to create artificial snow in the alps in the middle of winter. Made me sad

[Arc_Luena]

Was raining in the Paradiski up to 2200m a couple of weeks ago while i was there. The freezing level has been as high as 3500m in parts of the north western Alps this week. Sadly anything below 2000m in France Italy and Switzerland and below 1700m in Austria needs a big rethink re tourism and survival going forward....

[uwsxxte]

I have only been snowboarding for 24 years. When i started it was almost always possible to ski right down to Chamonix town at 1000 meters. Now it's rarely possible. I feel we wrecked our planet. And yes - I'm equally guilty!

[Dronethat]

Here in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, ski resorts this 2023-2024 season had a late start and then intermittently shutting down due to lack of snow. Snowmaking machines will not work either if the temperature is not cold enough.

[andyross]

When I was a kid back in the 70s we went skiing every Easter holidays locally here in Scotland. We never thought about there being no snow! There was always plenty. Now, I'd say our ski centres will not be able to offer skiing much longer. They are diversifying to mountain biking.

Our climate here has become increasingly stormy with torrential rain. Ok, it was Föhn effect, but January this year in the North West Highlands of Scotland saw a record-breaking temperature of +19.6°c!

[javirides]

Andorra is also on spring mode this early Feb feels like April most resorts in Spain next to France are also strugglin' even with artificial snow they can't keep up with this weather.

[georgessfeir]

we used to ski for months at Zaarour-Lebanon, now as an instructor, moved to other mountain areas called Kfardebian which is higher and still hosts alpine and many sports till early April's days😃

[halopartiska]

I am in St Johann in Tirol right now. Today 9 degrees Celcius, snow is melting all day long, there's only artificial on the ski slope. Otherwise it looks here like an end of April would do.

[Pit]

I am originally from small willage in polish mountains, when I was a Kid temperature were often dropping to -30'c and there was so much snow that sometimes we were buried. Now you can ski only on artificial snow and temp is often above 0 with frequent rain.

[nighswimming]

Less snow means less water in rivers in the summer. Just been to Lombardy Alps, hardly any snow below 1700m.

[iwnb]

I think the average temperature in general isn't rising that much that we are having these issues in the ski resorts in the Alps. A big problem is the high fluctuations in temperature (loads of snow one week, and another week it's 10+ degrees in Austria). This seems to be influenced by how often the Alpes is hit by wind flow and high pressure areas. Basically the warmth coming from Africa and Southern Europe is hitting the Alpes too often which gives big spikes at certain points and is messing up snow conditions. This is at the moments the biggest difference in the climate in the Alpes that we are experiencing which is having a massive influence.

When I was a kid (around 15-20 years ago I always loved skiing in the village where we stayed at ~950m instead of the mountain which was 1500m and a 15 minute drive away. Every year in February or March we were able to ski there, this is the first time in years that I saw they opened up pistes again for a couple of weeks when there was good snow. So unfortunate, wish I could re-live those days more often...