Vulnerability of ski tourism towards internal climate variability and climate change

Abstract:

Climate change and internal climate variability (ICV) pose a serious threat for winter tourism in the Alps. While the impacts of climate change on winter tourism have been elaborated extensively, no study quantifies the combined vulnerability of winter tourism towards climate variability and climate change. We use a 50-member single model large ensemble from a regional climate model to drive a physically based snowpack model for several case studies across the Swiss Alps to model daily snow depth, incorporating both, natural snow conditions and including technical snow production. The exploration of the large ensemble allows a probabilistic assessment of the vulnerability of ski tourism towards ICV in a future climate. To explore the resilience of the industry through adaptation measures such as technical snow production we analyze overall two setups, one with natural snow only, and one including technical snow. We then calculate a set of socioeconomic snow indices to make a probabilistic assessment of the vulnerability of winter tourism towards ICV in a future climate and show the capabilities of technical snowmaking to counter climate change and uncertainties related to ICV. This setup allows us multiple probabilistic analyses: First, we can classify past extreme winters such as the record-warm winter of 2006/2007 into the density distribution of the 50 pooled ensemble members for given periods in the present and future. This allows us to compare its probability of occurrence in the present and in the future. Second, calculate the probabilities that certain indices fall below a critical threshold that does not allow economic viability of ski resorts and we can observe its evolution over time, as well as the adaptability through technical snow production. Third, we show how the sensitivity towards ICV differs among different socioeconomic indices and between natural and technical snow conditions. Last, we show how the variability itself might change with anthropogenic forcing, which states an additional source of uncertainty for the industry.

Through this research we can tackle an important research gap and quantify the vulnerability of ski tourism towards both, ICV and climate change.