NRDC Study - 27,000 Jobs, $1 Billion Lost In Decade As Shorter Warmer Winters Pound Skiing Industry
Snow and ski industry dollars have been vanishing at an alarming pace around the country as winter temperatures have risen, but California's Sierra Nevada has yet to feel the full effect of what researchers said this week is an impending global disaster.
The ski and snow sports industries in 38 states have lost 27,000 jobs and as much as $1 billion in revenue over the past decade alone as a result of reduced snowfall and shorter winters, according to a study commissioned by the environmental advocacy groups Protect Our Winters and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"We need to protect one of America's greatest assets - a stable climate," the report, titled "Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States," concluded. "Without it, a vibrant winter sports industry, the economies of mountain communities everywhere, and the valued lifestyle of winter will be gone, not just for us, but for our children."
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While winter snowfall has not declined over much of the Sierra, "California temperatures have increased dramatically over the past century," said Field, who is also a professor of biology and environmental earth system science at Stanford University and co-chairman of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group. The state has warmed 1 degree Fahrenheit, from an average temperature of 58.5 degrees to 59.5 degrees since 1895, he said. Consequently, the snowpack in the northern part of the Sierra has been shrinking. So too has the amount of annual snow over three-quarters of the Western United States, an area that includes Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico, he said.
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http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Warmer-winters-chill-ski-industry-4101277.php
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