Global reduction of snow cover in ski areas under climate change

change. Eighteen percent of the Andean ski areas will decrease by 100% and another 31% by 50% or more. Similar reductions will be reached in the Appalachian Mountains and the Japa- nese Alps, where 14% and 17% of the ski areas will decrease completely and around one fourth will decline by more than 50%. Worse reductions in annual scd will occur in the Southern Alps with 30% and the Australian Alps with 78% of the ski areas declining in annual scd by more than 50%. Generally, ski areas with secure future snow conditions (0 to -50% change in scd) in the European Alps, Japanese Alps and Southern Alps will considerably concentrate towards central and higher elevated parts of mountain ranges (Fig 2). Annual snow cover days of ski areas in the southern and coastal mountain areas of North America will be more affected by climate change and decrease by 50% to 100%. More continental and northern ski areas in the Rocky Mountains will have a less pronounced loss in annual scd (< 50%) (Fig 2). Under a very high emissions scenario these patterns are more pronounced (S3–S9 Figs). Fig 1. Annual snow cover days between historical times (1981–2011) and the end of the century (2071–2100) in current ski areas of the seven major mountain regions worldwide as a) trends for low (SSP1-2.6, green), high (SSP3- 7.0, yellow) and very high (SSP5-8.5, violet) emissions scenarios and as b) violin plots under a high emissions scenario. The median and the 5%;95% confidence intervals are indicated by black lines and the width and length of the violins

show the total number of ski areas. Letters above the violin plots indicate significant differences between groups (Kruskal-Wallis test, Pairwise Wilcoxon test with Bonferroni correction, e.g. a differs significantly from b, c, and d). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299735.g001 PLOS ONE Global reduction of snow cover in ski areas under climate change PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299735 March 13, 2024 5 / 15