Climate Change and Nordic Skiing

The vast majority (nearly all) studies examining the impacts of climate change on skiing focus on Alpine skiing resorts.  However, the reality is that Nordic (i.e., cross-country) skiing is far more vulnerable to climate change as anyone who has a long tooth and skis at Mountain Dell or Round Valley has observed.  

The primary reason for this is elevation.  As an example, below is a photo that I took from the summit of the Rangger Köpfl, a 2000-meter peak from which one can see the Wetterstein Alps and Karwendel Alps of Germany and Austria.  South of the Wetterstein Alps and west (left) of the Karwendel Alps sits the Seefelder Plateau, a famous cross country region that hosted the 2019 Nordic World Championships and has about 245 km of trails connecting the villages of Seefeld, Leutasch, Mösern, Reith and Scharnitz.  

With elevations around 1200 meters, the Seefelder Plateau is promoted as a snow-reliable cross country skiing region.  However, this is still an elevation that is quite vulnerable to climate change and lower than the adjoining Rosshütte Alpine ski resort (also pictured) which extends from 1230 to 2064 meters. 

Consistent with the Seefelder Plateau region, Nordic resorts often lie at relatively low elevations, whereas nearby Alpine resorts reach to higher elevations.  To illustrate this, the figure below shows the mean elevation of Alpine (downhill) and Nordic (cross-country) ski areas in the Alps (AT=Austria; DE=Germany; IT=Italy; CH=Switzerland; FR=France; SL = Slovenia.  There is a clear bias to lower elevations for Nordic ski areas that is especially pronounced in the eastern Alps (Austria and Germany).  The bias is not as large in the western and southern Alps where Nordic ski areas have higher elevations, although unlike Alpine ski resorts, there are no Nordic resorts with mean elevations above 2400 meters.  

Source: Schilling et al. (2026)

Nordic resorts are so vulnerable to climate change because negative trends in snowfall and snow cover are largest at lower elevations.  In other words, the snowpack will suffer more at lower elevations than at upper elevations.  

This is happening already.  Schilling et al. (2026) recently used satellite data to examine long-term (1980–2024) and short-term (1999–2024) trends in the percentage of Nordic resort trail kilometers that lie above the snow-line elevation.  Below are the results for the late season (March and April) and full season (November to April).  Circles indicate the long term trend, diamonds the short-term trend, and orange fill indicates that the trends are statistically significant at a 95% confidence level.  Elevation along the x-axis is based on the resort mean elevation.  Long- and short-term trends in the percentage of Nordic resort trail kilometers during the late season are either flat or negative at nearly every resort.  Seasonal trends are also flat or negative at all but a few resorts.  Declines vary by resort, but the largest are generally at lower elevations.

Source: Schilling et al. (2026)

Geographically, large regions with negative trends  in the southwestern Alps of France and Italy and the southeastern Alps of Italy (e.g., Dolomites, etc.).  

Source: Schilling et al. (2026)

For the full season, the average trend was a decline of 1.1% per year in the percentage of Nordic resort trail kilometers above the snow line.  

There are some limitations to this study given it's use of satellite data back to 1979 when overpasses were somewhat infrequent, but in general these results are consistent with what is seen in directly measured snow cover trends from the Alps, with declines in seasonal snow cover duration largest at lower elevations.  

Much like Alpine skiing, Nordic resorts at higher elevations will have a competitive advantage for in the future due to smaller declines in natural snowpack.  This would include places like Alpe di Suisi/Seiser Alm in the Dolomites (around 1800 meters) or the Engadin Valley in Switzerland (also near 1800 meters).  That said, the demands of cross country skiing are such that high elevation is not something that many Nordic skiers might want to do, especially those who live nearer to sea level. 

Snowmaking and farming are becoming more common at some Nordic ski resorts.  On the Seefelder plateau, about 20 km of trail can be covered with artificial snow in Seefeld and another 6 km in Leutasch.  More expansion of such efforts is probably essential in the future at many resorts.  In Utah, Soldier Hollow is now experimenting with snow storage under geotextile fabrics to save snow through the summer for the next season.  

There is still time to save Nordic skiing, but it will require reducing carbon emissions and limiting future global warming.  

Temporary Halt of the Dismantling of NCAR

The National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesa Lab.  Source: Aaron Seltzer/Getty Images.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration moved to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). One component of that dismantling was temporarily halted earlier this week by a Federal judge in Colorado.    

NCAR is run by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), which was founded in 1959 and is a non-profit consortium involving more than 100 institutions of higher education.  In February, the National Science Foundation (under the direction of the Trump Administration) informed UCAR that it would transfer management and operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputer Center (NWSC) to a third-party operator.  UCAR's lawsuit argued this was a violation of federal law.  The temporary halt was imposed by after the Federal judge in Colorado decided that the transfer was arbitrary and capricious. More information is available at https://eos.org/research-and-developments/judge-blocks-nsf-from-dismantling. 

This is, however, a temporary reprieve and efforts to dismantle NCAR by the Trump administration will continue.  Real damage is being done to atmospheric science (and American science in general) by these and other actions by the Trump administration. 

NCAR is undoubtably the leading center for atmospheric research in the world.  Other major centers, like the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), Met Office Hadley Center, or Max Plank Institute for Meteorology have more focused missions and lack the breadth of NCAR.  NCAR also has strong ties to universities and provides important collaboration, education, and training opportunities for University faculty and students.  

NCAR has been an important thread through my entire career.  As a graduate student, I began to work with an atmospheric modeling system that was jointly developed by NCAR and Penn State University.  This modeling system, known as MM4, eventually became the MM5, which was ultimately replaced by what we know today as the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF).  In the early 1990s, there were only a handful of MM4 users, but by 2021 there were almost 60,000 registered users of WRF.  It is used for operational forecasting (e.g., the HRRR is based on WRF), simulations of historical events to enable diagnostic calculations or sensitivity studies not possible with observations alone, and regional climate simulations.  Many private sector companies use WRF.  

I have also been involved in field campaigns that have used NCAR's observing systems and field program support services.  The observing systems include heavily heavily instrumented Gulfstream G-V and C-130 aircraft, a polarimetric radar facility, and a variety of surface-based atmospheric sounding and profiling systems.  NCAR is vitally important for field campaign management, which can be highly complex involving in some cases hundreds of scientists and students spanning institutions not just in the United States but often in many countries (and field campaigns are often international in nature and NCAR serves a critical role here as well).  

I don't know how we got to a place where we are talking about dismantling a critical facility for the future of the Nation and humanity, but here we are.  Given the impacts of weather-related disasters in the US, we should be investing in NCAR rather than tearing it down.  Building weather and climate resiliency requires advanced knowledge and cutting-edge modeling tools.  NCAR is a wise investment for a country that experiences the greatest diversity of high-impact weather in the world and a planet that is in the early stages of abrupt and rapid climate change.  

Give Me a Reason to Come Home

I haven't enjoyed hiking like this in many years.  So many mountains in the eastern Alps and so little time.  Austria is truly an amazing place.  

With our time here winding down we're on the 2-3 hike per week schedule, including excursions near Innsbruck or right from our apartment when time is tight.  

Last Friday I did a hike up the Niederer Burgstall, a 2400 m peak in the Stubai Alps just a 35 minute bus ride from Innsbruck.  The terrain here reaches to near 3200 meters and the views are spectacular.   

A view from my descent of the the lower Stubaital and a famous local peak known as Serles just  left of center.  

Over the weekend we did a short hike from our apartment to a the Raschbrunnen mountain hut.  

Return to Innsbruck is easy.  One option is to catch the train at the Kranebitten bahnhof. 

The other is to walk a couple hundred meters down the hill and catch the K bus, which we did.  It dropped us off 3 blocks from our apartment.  This is a great way to do point-to-point hikes.

Today (Thursday) was another holiday here.  Spring in Austria is one holiday after another.  These people know how to live.  We did a hike in the Karwendel Alps east of Innsbruck to the summit of the Stanser Joch at a bit over 2000 meters.  I love this kind of ridge hiking. 

A crown jewel of the area is the Achensee, a beutiful turquoise lake that sits in a saddle between the Inn Valley to the south (and out of view to the right of the photo) and Germany to the north.  

The Achensee features industrial-scale tourism, from the many guest houses to the small cruise ships that provide short excursions on the lake.  Still, it's a pretty place.  

It's going to be hard to leave.

RRFS and Utah Snow Ensemble Repairs

Both the RRFS and Utah Snow Ensemble have been down for a few weeks on weather.utah.edu.  These outages were due to changes in the formatting of model data provided the National Weather Service and ECMWF.  I didn't have the time to dig fully into it until today and at this point I think I've got things repaired.  We will see if the automatic processing works as we move forward.  

I noticed there are a few members of the Utah Snow Ensemble producing snow at Alta Collins in several days.  

There's always hope lol.  

Media Coverage of Our SLR Work

Our work to improve forecasts of snow-to-liquid ratio (SLR) and snowfall was recently featured in a deep-dive article by Mitch Tobin of The Water Desk, an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder.  Peter Veals and Michael Pletcher really led this work and we benefited from collaborations with others from NOAA, the NOAA/National Weather Service and Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network.  And a huge shout out for everyone who provided SLR observations.  

You can access the article at https://waterdesk.org/2026/05/machine-learning-snow-to-liquid-ratio/. 

Four Hikes in Four Days

The area around Innsbruck is a hikers paradise for anyone of any age and fitness.  You can do enormous vertical if you are so inclined, hiking right from town, or cable car assisted hikes focused on alpine meadows or peak hopping.  The public transit and cable cars make access easy.  Forget the driving.  Even the buses have amazing views.  

Over the past four days I did four cable-car assisted hikes illustrating the great diversity of the region. None of these hikes were arduous or long, but they provided great views and experiences.  Below I've circled the cable cars I used to access the higher elevations.  

On day 1 I did a hike on the Nordkette immediately above Innsbruck.  I summarized this hike in the previous post (see Hike to Brandjochboden), but will add here that the Nordkette is the most accessible Alpine hiking you can do from Innsbruck.  The Nordkettenbahn consists of a funicular and two cable cars that take you from old town at 574 meters to the Nordkette ridge at 2269 meters.  There is great hiking at all elevations along this lift system, not to mention a number of mountiain huts along the way.  

On day 2 I took the J-bus from Innsbruck to the bottom of the Patscherkofelbahn, a gondola that runs to about 2000 meters.  From there, I did a short hike with a friend (and University of Utah graduate!) to the summit of the Patscherkofel, which offers up great views of the Inn Valley, Stubai Alps, and Tux Alps.  The photo below is toward the Stubai Alps with many 3000 meter peaks.  

There is a nice north-facing forest on the Patscherkofel, and several high-quality mountain huts.  In the past, I've hiked from summit to top.  It is also possible to do a point-to-point hike along the "Zirbenweg" trail to the Glungezer ski area, returning by the cable car and bus there.  One can do a variant on the Zirbenweg that goes to the summit of Glungezer at over 2600 meters.  

On day 3 I took the S4 regional train from Innsbruck to Seefeld.  This is a spectacular 35 minute train ride along a steep south facing aspect with drop-off views of the Inn Valley.  Once in Seefeld, it is about a kilometer or so walk to the Rosshütte bergbahn system that provides a lot of hiking options at elevations up to a bit over 2000 meters.  I did a short hike on this day to the Seefeld Spitze as I was going to be covering a lot of ground in Innsbruck that afternoon.  The photo below is of the Reither Spitze.  

And finally on day 4 I took the Stubaital (STB) light rail line to Mutters.  After a short walk I got on the Muttereralmbahn and did a great little loop hike below the north face of Saile (also known as Nockspitze), a prominent peak southwest of Innsbruck.  There are all sorts of hikes and scrambles you could do in this area, linking into the Kalkkogel Alps pictured below and possibly linking into the Axamer Lizum area where there are more cable cars and a bus return to Innsbruck (Axamer Lizum sits at the base of the Kalkkogel Alps).  

My route tagged a couple of minor summits with great views of the Inn Valley, which was a bit hazy today given the European heat wave (max temperature of 33C/91F in Innsbruck this afternoon).  

All of this is accessible with public transit right from town with no transfers.  The cable cars are optional, but appreciated as I get longer in the tooth.  Avoiding long descents is appreciated, but given the current heat, it's nice to start at around 2000 meters instead of 600.  

There are few useful apps for planning hikes in the area.  bergfex.com probably has the best maps and tons of route descriptions.  Hiking trails in the Innsbruck area (and maybe elsewhere) are rated on the Swiss Alpine Club scale (e.g., T1, T2, T3, etc...).  This is really helpful especially if you don't like exposure or scary scree crossings.  bergfex.com also has excellent maps, although subscription is helpful for detailed route finding using a phone.  https://maps.innsbruck.info/ is very useful for finding mountian huts (and always check if they are open, especially midweek).  

For transit, I use a combination of Google maps, Öbb Tickets, and IVB Tickets.  For buses and trains, Öbb Tickets will sell you anything you need and give you the QR code for validation if requested (common on trains, less so on buses or light-rail in Innsbruck but you should have it).  You can buy weekly all Tirol transit passes on it too.