In the north of the Alps and the French Pyrenees, they expected to host crowds of visitors from around the world for a skiing holiday, after a snow-white Christmas. But climate change disrupted plans for the peak season of skiing, an industry worth 30 billion dollars to Europe. In many countries throughout Europe, heat prevails with record temperatures that are not typical for the season, and ski resorts located at low altitude and just opened – had to close their gates, as they observe the little snow that is rapidly melting in the mountains.
In the Alps, the warm temperatures have melted snow and kept people off the slopes. The lower resorts across France, Switzerland and Italy will have to wait for packed cold packs to open to the public. Due to the lack of snow, Le Contamins, a French ski resort overlooking Mount Blanc, was forced to cancel a world ski race planned for the weekend, leaving many disappointed with the plans gone awry.
In Switzerland, this week the Splugen-Tambo ski resort, located at an altitude of 1,480 meters, announced the closure of its slopes until further notice, due to a “lack of snow, heavy rains and high temperatures”. Verbier, a particularly popular Swiss resort, also had to close several pistes at an altitude of 1,650 meters, unusually for the month of January. In Israel, the Hermon ski resort is also dead. Apart from a few days of rain in December, some of them in heavy doses that caused flooding, winter is shy of coming.
Despite the unusual weather in January, this is not a one-off event. This is another extreme event, on a continuum of a long process of climate change. Europe feels this very well, as it warms at an accelerated rate compared to the rest of the world. For example, Switzerland is warming twice as fast as the world average, and has suffered an increase of about 2 degrees Celsius in temperatures over the last 150 years.
Almost half of the 169 ski resorts that have had to close since 1951 did so due to a lack of snow, according to a study by the University of Grenoble. By the end of this century, the Snow and Avalanche Research Institute warns, only resorts above 2,500 meters will receive enough natural snow to stay open. Even in the Swiss resort of Davos, where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum begins on January 16, the amount of snow this year remains scant on the lower slopes.
“Green Christmas holidays are becoming more and more common in the Alps,” wrote the Swiss Snow and Avalanche Research Institute in Davos in its latest report. “The vast majority of stations measure a clear decrease in the number of days with snow-covered ground, regardless of their altitude or location.”
Temperatures of almost 25 degrees were recorded in France at the weekend, and 20 in Germany. On the first day of the new year, in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, temperatures of 18.9 degrees Celsius were recorded – more than 5 degrees Celsius above the previous record set 30 years ago. In the city of Bilbao in northern Spain, 24.9 degrees Celsius were recorded, temperatures that might be expected normally in early July. Switzerland experienced 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday this week, similar to a tropical country. Climate scientists and meteorologists said this week that they could not recall such an extreme event in European winter meteorology.
The unusual weather, created as a result of warm air entering Europe from subtropical regions, is, according to scientists, a front-row seat for observing the consequences of climate change on the planet, man-made changes that disrupt everyday life and leave a devastating mark on nature.
The burning of fossil fuels – such as coal, oil and gas – is the main driver of the climate crisis, with scientists repeatedly calling for a reduction in the use of those fuels to prevent climate catastrophe. The global temperature has already risen due to greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 degrees, and is expected to continue to rise even if greenhouse gas emissions stop, up to one and a half degrees by the end of the century. But in the current situation, where humanity is not working to stop the rolling snowball, the warming may be much sharper, and cause extreme climatic events – in winter and summer.
“Global warming is already causing a change in the configuration of the global atmospheric flow,” explains Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld, a climate scientist from the Hebrew University who co-authored the report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “This warming is not natural, but due to Greenhouse gas emissions, which cause, among other things, that the temperature differences between the pole and the low latitudes are getting smaller. The result – we get more exchanges of air between the pole and the low latitudes, which are accompanied by extreme weather events. Heat waves are much hotter than they were in the past, and waves Cold also reaches extremes. Another result is heavier rains, because the hot and humid air carries more water vapor, and when it condenses, it turns into a flood.”
Apart from those who had to put up with a canceled ski vacation, residents in Europe are enjoying clear and sunny days. But for the natural systems, this is a devastating signal of climate change, the consequences of which will be faced by human society in the future. “In certain areas such as the Czech Republic, the trees began to die prematurely, they woke up from their winter hibernation,” explains Rosenfeld. “The natural system is changing. Those trees that started to rot, we don’t know what will happen to them later. The cold will return, perhaps even with great intensity, and it may be very damaging to some of this year’s crops. Birds that do not migrate south because it is warm enough for them where they are now due to the heat wave, could perhaps be caught unprepared for the return of the cold and be damaged.’
And in Israel? For now, warm and spring sun is expected to characterize many more days throughout January. “Israel now has abnormal weather, the public may not be aware of it,” explains Rosenfeld. “The barometric depressions pass to the south of us and cause easterly winds instead of the westerly winds that usually bring us the rain clouds from the sea. So we see climatic drought in the north, and floods in the south. On the one hand, we don’t have enough water for the Kinneret, and on the other hand, in other places there are floods that can be devastating, sweeping away land and causing damage to property and agriculture, as well as loss of life.”
For example, according to the meteorological service in Great Britain, the likelihood of heat waves such as those experienced by Great Britain in 2022 has increased 160 times due to human influence on the climate. Without the greenhouse gases emitted by humanity and causing a climate crisis, a year like 2022 would only be expected once in 500 years. Now, such a heat wave is expected every 3-4 years.
“Events that used to be rare are becoming common before our eyes,” explains Prof. Rosenfeld. At the height of the Ice Age, the world was an average of 5 degrees colder than the temperature before the industrial revolution, and the world was very different from today. This gives us an idea of how big the impact of a 5 degree change in global temperature is. Since then we have been going in the other direction, and the world will change accordingly.
“This means that the sea water will rise and flood coastal cities, in the hottest areas it will be hot beyond human endurance, some areas will suffer from repeated floods, and others will become dry. Areas that are currently unfit for agricultural cultivation and settlement in Canada and northern Russia – it will be possible to settle in them, but the thawing of the areas These will also be a climate disaster. The melting of the ground will cause the emission of methane, which is a greenhouse gas that will even increase the degree of warming of the earth. This will be a severe economic and demographic problem, which will cause geopolitical crises and many climate refugees in the world. We see that animals are already extinct, this is an indicator of why What is happening now and what the future holds for us.’
Paradoxically, the heat wave in Europe led to a reduction of the continent’s dependence on fuels, which accelerate the climate crisis and lead to excess mortality due to air pollution. This winter, as the heat cooled demand for natural gas heating in the region, fears of gas shortages and energy disruptions have faded for now in the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the past month, natural gas prices on the continent have nearly halved, reaching levels last seen before Russia invaded Ukraine.
However, the cold may return for the rest of the winter and reverse the trend. In addition, according to analysts, gas prices could rise again as Europe tries to replenish its gas reserves for next winter.