Bit of a late one from me, I was fortunate enough to have been in Tignes since New Years Day with the UCL Ski Trip.
When we first arrived I was greeted with the classic 'You do geography, how can global warming me true with these temperatures?'. Having laughed it off, I hope that statement was meant as seriously as I took it.
But, having skied a couple of days the conservation switched to 'You do geography, is global warming the cause of such bad snow?'. The snow this year across the Alps has been terrible, we were lucky it chucked it down during our week because it was incredibly thin on the ground, especially for the start of January (I'm going off what I've been told here, I'm not an experienced skier). Note that the top photo you can actually see the grass in the foreground.
One year and one observation is obviously no bearing and cannot be presented as evidence. But it is interesting to hear experienced skiers talk about how bad the snow was, and makes you wonder what effect we're having on the world. Our electricity production methods, and transport, are at the heart of global warming and potentially driving a change which we are seeing on the ground. Again, it should be noted there is also annual variation so one year is not evidence.
On a happier note, 2015 has seen a hugely successful COP compared to other years and hopefully we will have snow to ski on for many years to come, Happy New Year.
As you point out, there isn't concrete evidence yet that global warming has caused the poor snow this year. That said, reading your blog did make me wonder whether it might take direct changes to people's life-styles which are sometimes taken for granted for them to want to act to improve the situation. The effects of global warming sometimes seem quite distant or focused on statistics but if it is negatively impacting on an activity as popular as skiing, people might wake up to the hard truths.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, global warming is really coming of age. The first global warming (attempted) refugee was this year! He was sent packing back to Kiribati, but this is something that will become ever more present as the impacts of global start to hit home.
DeleteHere's the story about the refugee: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/22/kiribati-climate-change-refugee-told-he-must-leave-new-zealand