Here we go again (global warming)
from today’s Australian newspaper. I’d like to revisit this thread in 2020 and see how we’re going.
ENVIRONMENTAL researchers say the end of Australia’s ski culture is in sight, despite Victoria and NSW experiencing one of their best snow seasons in almost a decade.
People were still shredding up powder last weekend at some of Australia’s top ski resorts, but Griffith associate professor Catherine Pickering says snow is rapidly disappearing because of global warming and by 2020 Australia may not have any left.
“We’ve predicted by 2020 to lose something like 60 per cent of the snow cover of the Australian Alps,” Professor Pickering, from the Griffith School of Environment, said.
“Unfortunately because our current emissions and our current rises in temperatures are at the high end of the predictions, it’s definitely coming to us sooner and faster.”
Professor Pickering researched the effects of declining snow cover and hotter summers on the Australian Alps and says this year’s better than average season has been a one-off combination of La Nina and a cold snap.
“We’ll still occasionally have good years, but they’ll become less frequent,” she said. “A poor year in the past will be a good year now.”
The research covered all Victoria and NSW ski resorts and Professor Pickering says the alpine region is most threatened by climate change, with an increasing threat to endemic and endangered mountain species as well as plants because of early thaws.
Ski resorts will have to rely heavily on snow machines, she said, which was not sustainable.
“Ski resorts will have to increase snow making . . . which is limiting in cost and water,” she said. “Because we don’t have very high mountains . . . we don’t have large water catchments above our resorts. In a few years, the amount of water that ski resorts will need to make snow is going to exceed the amount of water that’s used by Canberra.”
Professor Pickering said because of rising costs and diminishing snow coverage, Australian skiers would go overseas to Europe or the US.
Italian ski instructor Rene Crazzolara, who spends seven months a year at Thredbo, NSW, says Australia’s poor seasons are not to do with global warming, but our low altitude when compared with European terrain: “Europe has generally better skiing because it has higher mountains. It’s not global warming, it’s altitude.”
That’s really weird, they have some professor spouting doom and gloom and the rebuttal is from an Italian ski instructor, WTF? Personally I don’t believe it for a second, I suspect Pickering’s grant money is based around research that seeks to support a predefined conclusion (global warming), should she turn up something that disproves or is unsupportive of the predefined conclusion it will be ignored or marginalised as an anomaly much like this current season has been in the story.
Far too much money riding on the bandwagon of global warming for unbiased studies to come out and be given the credence they deserve. Access to the raw data collected by Pickering might prove more interesting and open to an entirely different interpretation than has been put forward but would result in a loss of funding. Perhaps if the source of the funding for every research project was divulged people could make up their own minds as to the validity of the conclusions predefined or otherwise.
It is indeed hard to think that in just 7-8 years we will have virtually no snow.
Totally agree nthn!! Imo, there is far too much of a conflict of interest regarding these scientists grant money origins for them to provide anything resembling an ‘independent’ appraisal of the situation. If the government is pushing an idea/concept then it could be argued that its being pushed by a bunch of liars!
It does seem crazy to think in only a few years we will have nothing!
I remember 10 years ago being told 2020 and being worried!
I have not doubt the globe is warming, but I am certainly not an alarmist 
I doubt there will be “no snow” in my lifetime, but quite possibly see the snowfall reduced to a point where it is not finacially viable for a business to run lifts or the cost per lift ticket would be very high to cater for a shorter season.
Over the last 21 years I have noticed the slow change in vegetation types, the birds and wildlife that no longer bother shifting out for the winter. Maybe they are adapting to the alpine enviroment?
There is no denying that the polar caps are reducing. I am hoping like hell that it’s just a glitch in the system and we go back to the days where we have the amounts of snow I read about in our lodges history books
One of my teachers is a global warming alarmist. My dad tells me stuff that my teacher doesn’t want us to know, and when i say it in class I get in trouble. 
I thing people like Professor Pickering should sign a deal that says if their predictions are totally wrong (like by 2020 in her case), they have to say sorry to everyone and quit their jobs.
Part of the problem seems to be that it’s hard to tell regular weather cycles from long-term effects like global warming. Certainly the good season we’ve had this year has lifted my hopes that we may still see good snow for some years to come. What a shame politics seems to be interfering with science to the point that no-one can trust the results.
One of my teachers is a global warming alarmist. My dad tells me stuff that my teacher doesn’t want us to know, and when i say it in class I get in trouble.
This should prove amusing, is it a global conspiracy by the lizard overlords and Illuminati to get us to move back in the caves?
haha yeah, fancy having to make slight changes to the way we live and consume things, to avoid destroying the planet we live on! Crazy, that!
One of my teachers is a global warming alarmist. My dad tells me stuff that my teacher doesn’t want us to know, and when i say it in class I get in trouble.
This should prove amusing, is it a global conspiracy by the lizard overlords and Illuminati to get us to move back in the caves?
That just sounds dumb. Who would think that?
Imo, there is far too much of a conflict of interest regarding these scientists grant money origins for them to provide anything resembling an ‘independent’ appraisal of the situation.
Try telling that to a brainwashed teacher. 
Imo, there is far too much of a conflict of interest regarding these scientists grant money origins for them to provide anything resembling an ‘independent’ appraisal of the situation.
Try telling that to a brainwashed teacher.
Seems interesting most of the opposing view points are coming from those funded by the mining and manufacturing industries. Or are, you know, not scientists but opinion writers.
Imo, there is far too much of a conflict of interest regarding these scientists grant money origins for them to provide anything resembling an ‘independent’ appraisal of the situation.
Try telling that to a brainwashed teacher.
Seems interesting most of the opposing view points are coming from those funded by the mining and manufacturing industries. Or are, you know, not scientists but opinion writers.
My teacher’s a bit like you, and just shuts down all other opinions like religious people do.
Imo, there is far too much of a conflict of interest regarding these scientists grant money origins for them to provide anything resembling an ‘independent’ appraisal of the situation.
Try telling that to a brainwashed teacher.
Seems interesting most of the opposing view points are coming from those funded by the mining and manufacturing industries. Or are, you know, not scientists but opinion writers.
What are you talking about? Opinion writers no doubt have years of scientific experience and the oil/mining industry don’t have a single vested interest in this at all.