Global reduction of snow cover in ski areas under climate change

RESEARCH ARTICLE Global reduction of snow cover in ski areas under climate change Veronika MitterwallnerID1☯*, Manuel Steinbauer1, Gregor Mathes2, Anna Walentowitz3☯ 1 Sport Ecology, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER) & Bayreuth Center of Sport Science (BaySpo), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany, 2 Paleontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 3 Department of Biogeography, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * veronika.mitterwallner@uni-bayreuth.de Abstract Ongoing climate change substantially alters snowfall patterns with severe but diverging con- sequences for global ski areas. A global assessment as well as the investigation of potential implications for mountain ecosystems is currently lacking. We quantify future trends in natu- ral snow cover days under different climate change scenarios until 2100 in seven major global skiing regions and discuss implications for mountainous biodiversity by analysing how natural snow cover days relate to regional human population density. Within all major skiing regions, snow cover days are projected to decrease substantially under every assessed climate change scenario. Thirteen percent of all current ski areas are projected to completely lose natural annual snow cover and one fifth will experience a reduction of more than 50% by 2071–2100 relative to historic baselines. Future skiable areas will concentrate

in less populated areas, towards continental regions and inner parts of the mountain ranges. As skiable areas will be located at greater distances to highly populated areas in the future, we expect an expansion of infrastructure and increasing intervening actions (i.e., artificial snowmaking, slope grooming) to prolong snow duration. Our results are concerning for both the recreational and economic value of skiing as well as for mountain biodiversity since vul- nerable high-altitude species might be threatened by space reductions with ski area expansion. Introduction Climate change is negatively affecting snow reliability in ski areas all over the world. Concern about how skiable the future will be is rising amongst professional and amateur skiers and the skiing industry. The negative consequences of climate change in terms of declining snow depth and reduced snow duration are reported for many regions worldwide [1–3]. These find- ings are socio-economically and ecologically concerning. Skiing and its touristic value are of great importance for local economies [4]. In addition, biodiversity in mountainous areas is already heavily affected by global warming [5] and is likely to receive additional pressure by expanding ski areas and a concentration of skiers towards higher elevations. As area is PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299735 March 13, 2024 1 / 15 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Mitterwallner V, Steinbauer M, Mathes G, Walentowitz A (2024) Global reduction of snow

cover in ski areas under climate change. PLoS ONE 19(3): e0299735. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0299735 Editor: Sher Muhammad, ICIMOD: International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, NEPAL Received: April 17, 2023 Accepted: February 14, 2024 Published: March 13, 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Mitterwallner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are derived from the openly available CHELSA database https://envicloud.wsl.ch/and openstreetmap http://overpass-turbo.eu/. Funding: Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 491183248. Funded by the Open Access Publishing Fund of the University of Bayreuth. The funders had no role in the study