Global warming blamed for ski resort's decline

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY - Global warming is more than just a theory to Germany's most famous winter resort, where a worrisome shortage of snow in recent decades has forced the Alpine village to reinvent itself.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen gained worldwide fame as the venue for the 1936 winter Olympics, but the picturesque town of 27,000 has now become more reliant on summer tourism because rain falls more often than snow in winter.

As the snow line retreats up mountains in the face of what many scientists believe to be the effects of global warming, Garmisch -- at an altitude of 2,300 feet -- is rarely covered in snow. Losing its "white gold" has alarmed the local populace.

The town, where 70 per cent of economic output derives from tourism, has nevertheless tried hard to replace what nature has stopped giving by investing millions of dollars in state-of-the-art snow-making equipment that blows man-made crystals onto the ski slopes and into the valleys.

"Without the artificial snow we simply wouldn't be able to attract enough tourists here in the winter," said Thomas Schmid, mayor of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a town that lies in an Alpine valley just north of the Austrian border.

"We have enough snow on the slopes thanks to the snow machines," he told Reuters. "We can't be afraid of global warming. We have to be ready for it. We can't afford to be surprised by it."

It is, Schmid concedes, more than a shame that Garmisch and picture-postcard mountain villages like it in nearby Austria as well as in Italy, Switzerland and France are getting less snow.

A UN-funded panel of scientists said in 2001 that a build-up of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels was nudging up global temperatures.

A minority of scientists dismiss global warming or say that natural variations, as in solar radiation, are to blame.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned in a 2003 report that global temperatures were expected to rise due to global warming by up to three degrees Celsius in the next 50 years, raising the snow line and crippling the ski industry.

The UNEP report said slopes above altitudes of 3,940 feet now considered viable ski areas would be at risk within 30 to 50 years, when skiers would have to trek up to altitudes of 4,920 to 5,900 feet for snow.

Most of Garmisch's ski and snowboard slopes are between 2,460 and 6,560 feet -- among the highest in Germany. World Cup ski races at a lower Bavarian resort, Berchtesgaden, were canceled in two of the last five years because of a lack of snow.

"There's nothing more beautiful than a snow-filled winter landscape," said Schmid. "It's our jewel and we have to do what we can to protect it. But it's a global problem. In Garmisch we have to be pragmatic and ready for the era that might follow."

To that end, Schmid said Garmisch has developed a network of summer hiking trails and mountain bike routes. It has also heavily promoted its summer tourism, touting its pristine mountain air as an antidote to allergies.

"We're taking the problem seriously," said Schmid, whose office is filled with oversized paintings of the snow-capped mountains that rim the valley around Garmisch.

The town, which has 15 million tourists each year and books 1.2 million overnight stays, recently unveiled plans to invest $11.8 million on more snow-making infrastructure for four miles of slopes into the valley.

"You can fool nature a bit, but you can't buy the weather," said Thomas Eisenhofer, 37, who operates a ski rental business. "The artificial snow will help keep us going for a while, but we're going to have to figure out what to do then."

Karl Ernst, 70, remembers as a child when snow in Garmisch piled up as high as 6-1/2 feet.

"The winters were completely different back then," said the retired train conductor. "Now winters feel more like spring."

Gerhard Hofmann, head of climate observation at the German Weather Service office in Bavaria, said snow cover days in the region have declined by 10 per cent in the last 15 years.

"It's due to global warming and not climate fluctuation," Hofmann said. "Keeping ski slopes into the valleys open and operating is becoming a problem all over Bavaria."

Wilhelm Blenk, 73, a retired BMW design engineer and hobby skier, said: "Sure I'm afraid the snow will be gone one day, but not before I'm dead and buried."

Andrew Syme, manager of a restaurant at the Ostfelderkopf ski slope above Garmisch at an altitude of 6,725 feet, looked out at the thin covering of snow and sadly shook his head.

"Normally we should have at least a meter of snow by January," he said. "Two years ago there was no snow through the Christmas season and lifts were shut down. We could never make up for those losses. It's scary. The weather is going crazy."

- REUTERS