Climate Change: The End of NY's Ski Industry?

Z wrote

I did see recently that solar flair activity is waning and we are now entering a trough off a peak.  It runs in 7 year cycles I think it said and this will lower temps over the next 13 years when they will again be peaking.

I hope you are right about cooler temps for the next few years, but a seven year cycle can exist within a 150 year trend. It seems like we consistently hit all time record high temperatures in the warm part of the cycle, then temps more or less stabilize at the high level during the cool part of the cycle.

mm

http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USNY8754

Is the weather on Whiteface really changing?

If you look at the record highs like in 1990 that was at the peak of solar activity 2 cycles ago

Very interesting

Yep - last record high average was 1990 which says to me that maybe WF is just not participating in the Global warming narrative. I don’t think a reduction in snow is the culprit for resorts needed to make more snow, I think it’s the crowds. I heard Gore had some 7,000 people days this season, that has to make for a crappy snow pack.

Going back to the 1930s, there were seasons skiing just didn’t happen due to lack of snow let alone put 7,000 people on high speed lifts trying to ski on a 10” base.

I can remember a day when there was supposedly 6k at Belleayre. Maybe a little more. 7K is a lot. But seems like Gore is big enough to somewhat spread them out.

Still, I can't believe we're talking about climate change while we're currently in the midst of some of the best snow pack in the last few seasons!

PeeTex wrote

I heard Gore had some 7,000 people days this season, that has to make for a crappy snow pack.

Going back to the 1930s, there were seasons skiing just didn’t happen due to lack of snow let alone put 7,000 people on high speed lifts trying to ski on a 10” base.

Gore is more than double the size it was back in the early 70s, when they had no snowmaking.  How many days would they have had this year without snowmaking?  I'm guessing less than 10, and maybe zero.

mm

Ethan Snow wrote

Still, I can't believe we're talking about climate change while we're currently in the midst of some of the best snow pack in the last few seasons!

Climate change is a long term issue, but none of the last few seasons were very good.  Last year was the best around here, and it was good in the west, but more often than not there is no new snow on my western trips. Telluride was running on mostly snowmaking for most of this year, Crested Butte wasn't in full operation in early February when I pulled the plug on a trip there.  

Ski conditions have deteriorated all over North America since the 1970s.  We still have good days and good seasons, but the frequency of washouts and snow droughts has increased substantially.  

mm

You’d be guessing wrong then.
They opened a lot of terrain this season they made no snow on.
Same as most seasons. The haven’t made snow on Powderpass and Northstar for years and these have been open as well as a few others. As far as Gore getting larger, the bulk of the traffic is still on the same trails. Some people go over to Burnt ridge but not that much. Also, don’t forget - Gore had quite a few other trails that are now work roads or grown in glades.

Yes, it seems to me we are getting the big storms later in the season but this could just be a long cycle thing. The fact the monthly average highs as shown in the Whiteface data have not been hit for over 20 only supports the global warming narrative if you say that’s what would likely happen here as other areas warm and if that’s the case than we are in the right spot long term

PeeTex wrote

You’d be guessing wrong then.

As far as Gore getting larger, the bulk of the traffic is still on the same trails. Some people go over to Burnt ridge but not that much. Also, don’t forget - Gore had quite a few other trails that are now work roads or grown in glades.

I don't have any opinion about Whiteface, but I'm right about Gore.  The summit at Gore has less lift capacity now than 40 years ago, and they've added far more terrain than they closed.  The only things they closed were Lower Steilhang, a short section of Upper Darby and lower Tannery. Tannery has far more traffic now than it ever had when it extended to the base. They've added Lies and Rumor and at least four glades. There were no skiable glades in the early 70s.  

If you want to see what a Gore season would look like without snowmaking, check out Hickory HIll.  Have they been open more than 5 days in the last 20 years?

mm

we gotta start posting facts and not just from what we remember. I don't have an opinion to make on global warming because so much misinformation out there.  We get a few warm days in February and everybody starts claiming global warming as if that doesn't happen winter after winter...  We need to look at trends  

Uh oh:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/

The Northeast is warming especially fast.

Anthony Broccoli, a climate scientist at Rutgers, defines an unusually warm or cold month as ranking among the five most extreme in the record going back to the late 1800s. In the case of New Jersey, he says, “since 2000, we’ve had 39 months that were unusually warm and zero that were unusually cold.”

Scientists do not completely understand the Northeast hot spot. But fading winters and very warm water offshore are the most likely culprits, experts say. That’s because climate change is a cycle that feeds on itself.

Warmer winters mean less ice and snow cover. Normally, ice and snow reflect solar radiation back into space, keeping the planet relatively cool. But as the ice and snow retreat, the ground absorbs the solar radiation and warms.

Edit to add picture:

So now let’s make Harvs life more difficult than it already is.

The last several winters have produced more snow pack than I’ve seen since the banner winter of 2001 where there was a snow pack so deep it was up to the roof on the Summit warming hut at Gore.

Have you looked at the Stats on the Greenland glaciers - they have been expanding again.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145185/major-greenland-glacier-is-growing

Oh - but just like Biden, you choose “truth” over facts, I’ll stick with facts.

PeeTex wrote

So now let’s make Harvs life more difficult than it already is.

The last several winters have produced more snow pack than I’ve seen since the banner winter of 2001 where there was a snow pack so deep it was up to the roof on the Summit warming hut at Gore.

Have you looked at the Stats on the Greenland glaciers - they have been expanding again.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145185/major-greenland-glacier-is-growing

Oh - but just like Biden, you choose “truth” over facts, I’ll stick with facts.

So, this is a logical problem with taking an isolated data point and extrapolating a conclusion that the data point does not support.

"That's because, despite the fact that this particular glacier is growing, the whole Greenland ice sheet is still losing lots and lots of ice. Jakobshavn drains only about seven percent of the entire ice sheet, so even if it were growing robustly, mass loss from the rest of the ice sheet would outweigh its slight expansion.".

It is kinda like finding the places on the globe that are colder and snowier than average and pointing to those as "proof" that climate change is not reality even though the majority of areas in the globe have an overall significant increase in average temperature.

"It’s also why despite serious implications for Greenland’s near future ice loss, researchers caution the findings don’t mean we’ve found a magic climate reverse. It’s in fact akin to a pendulum. Jakobshavn had periods of fast retreat in the 20th century, followed by thickening, then retreat, Khazendar says—but on average the air and sea are warming, and that means retreats are always going to be bigger than advances, adds Willis."

Context. Nuance.

Regarding snowfall, let's not forget we had one of the worst winters in my lifetime a few years ago. Before that, we had a few pretty average and below average winters. We can have a few jackpots amongst an overall worsening trend. A two recent data points does not a trend make. And climate change does not mean every place warms equally, some places may get colder and snowier even though the overall average increases for most locations. For those of us in the northeast, who knows what the long term implications are. It is certainly hard to see the long term trend after having an above average winter.

There is a lot of data to support The theory that 2006 was the peak of a natural 200 year cycle, on of which is that there has not been any significant global mean temperatures rise in the last 10 years. Couple that with the observed lessening of solar output as we approach a solar minimum and you have enough contrary data to say that the climate will get colder, not warmer although this does not support the political narrative that as a country we need to unilaterally hobble our economy.

Now with that said I do believe we need to curb population growth and conserve more but Miami isn’t under water as Al Gore predicted it would be by now.

Warmer air holds more moisture and can result in heavier snowfalls with more moisture content in the snow. That’s a great recipe for fat bases, some intermittent rain of course but some nice base too.

raisingarizona wrote

Warmer air holds more moisture and can result in heavier snowfalls with more moisture content in the snow. That’s a great recipe for fat bases, some intermittent rain of course but some nice base too.

Interesting you say that- the bigger by-product of burning fossil fuels is water vapor rather than CO2.

riverc0il wrote

And climate change does not mean every place warms equally, some places may get colder and snowier even though the overall average increases for most locations. For those of us in the northeast, who knows what the long term implications are.

Spot on. Am I a climate change denier? Far from it. Earth is warming; whether it is part of a natural cycle or not, how humans are spewing CO₂ into the atmosphere is magnifying that warming. Yet the climate is a very complex system; thus, the local effects of climate change are somewhat unpredictable. You would think, with the computing power we have… but…

Anyone remember that anomalous blob of warm water sitting off the PNW for a few years? How that led to PNA+ and better flows for cold air into the Northeast? Is it possible we're seeing another anomalous blob in the Gulf of Maine, Long Island Sound, and the Atlantic Ocean off the Jersey shore, etc.? If that goes away at some point, for whatever reason, we're going to get a lot colder and, with the excess of water vapor in the atmosphere right now, I would assume that means more snow. Looking further out, what if the Greenland melt shuts down the AMOC?

Anyone indicating that they can predict the microlevel or near-macrolevel effects of climate change is looking for clicks or trying to rake in research dollars. And, to my mind, these clickbait-y predictions are part of driving the climate change denial phenomenon, since sensationalistic predictions don't often come true.

Why not, instead, focus less on climate change and focus more on environmental improvements that we can make that will make a daily difference in people's lives and have some sort of effect on climate change too? Like, I don't know, the awful air quality in southwestern and central CT that has everything to do with blowover from excess exhaust emissions in the New York City metro region? Get cars off the road with better transit, etc., and you clean up the air—saving lives and I do not exaggerate—and lower our carbon output. Win—win, and perhaps something we can get even the climate change deniers behind.

Scersk wrote

focus less on climate change and focus more on environmental improvements that we can make that will make a daily difference in people's lives and have some sort of effect on climate change too? ... Win—win, and perhaps something we can get even the climate change deniers behind.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

I think that if you are going to subsidize this stuff, you rig it so that a disproportionate percentage of the jobs go to coal country or areas where livelihoods depend on fossils fuel sales, to get buy in. People tend to be in favor of things that bring jobs to their town.

Harvey wrote

Scersk wrote

focus less on climate change and focus more on environmental improvements that we can make that will make a daily difference in people's lives and have some sort of effect on climate change too? ... Win—win, and perhaps something we can get even the climate change deniers behind.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

I think that if you are going to subsidize this stuff, you rig it so that a disproportionate percentage of the jobs go to coal country or areas where livelihoods depend on fossils fuel sales, to get buy in. People tend to be in favor of things that bring jobs to their town.

Concur Harv
Jobs in hometowns equal happy people

The article I linked to was pretty good. I wish you guys read it before you all started discussing what you thought it was about.

For instance:

.

The only part of the United States that has not warmed significantly since the late 1800s is the South, especially Mississippi and Alabama, where data in some cases shows modest cooling. Scientists have attributed this “warming hole” to atmospheric cycles driven by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, along with particles of soot from smokestacks and tailpipes, which have damaging health effects but can block some of the sun’s intensity. Those types of pollutants were curtailed by environmental policies, while carbon dioxide remained unregulated for decades.

Also, the article does a good job of describing things that are actually happening now, rather than the model-based speculating that you guys all seem to assume they do.

Maybe the class discussion would be more productive if you students would read the assignment.