How the Winter Olympics will (and won’t) survive in the climate era

Jordan I’d like you to close your eyes. Picture your favorite outdoor moment from the Winter Olympics, any winter Olympics. Now that it’s in your head, take a good look at the background of that picture. Is it a winter wonderland, snow-covered hills and evergreen trees, maybe some flakes gently falling, everything a winter games should be. Now hold on to that memory. Because it’s rare. And soon, it might be extinct. If you have seen any wide-angle photos of outdoor events at these Beijing Olympics, you have probably seen a lot of brown and gray, maybe some cooling towers in the background. And then a stripe of brilliant white in the middle where the snow has been placed by snow machines. Because none of it is real. These games will be the first ones to feature virtually 100% man-made snow, they will not be the last as the climate changes. So do the games. And so does the technology and the resources needed to make sure there is you know, snow for the events that need it. Already. Past Winter Olympic hosts cities would need mountains more artificial snow if they were ever to host another games by the middle of this century. According to our report, even Vancouver, British Columbia will be an unreliable host city. So what does the future hold for the Winter Olympics? Will they eventually cease to exist? Or will we continue to use as much money and as much water as it takes to make enough snow for them? And if all the snow was fake, and the temperature is well above zero? Why are we even calling these winter games?

I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is the big story. Kathryn Blaze Baum is the environment reporter for The Globe and Mail. Hello, Kathryn.

Kathryn Blaze Baum Hi.

Jordan Why don’t you start for me just because this was new information and really interesting. What are snow cannons? And specifically how do they work?

Kathryn Blaze Baum Okay, yeah, this isn’t something that you know, a lot of people are going to be totally versed in. So I’ll walk you through it. It’s a little bit scientific, but I’ll try to make it easy to understand. So snow cannons are snow guns, and they are the machines that make the snow that we’re seeing at the games, they basically pull water from a network of underground pipes that are typically fed from you know, things like reservoirs. So these snow cannons or snow guns have what are called nuclear nozzles, and they are the heart of the machines. So using compressed air and water mist, they spit out these tiny ice crystals, which are then blown through a fan. And then while the crystals are flying through the air, there’s another nozzle that sprays water droplets at sort of like a horizontal direction and those droplets attached to the crystals and become snow as they fall to the ground. It’s a really fast process and the snow that’s created looks kind of nothing like the classic hexagonal flakes that fall from the sky when you look at them under a microscope. The machine-made snowflakes are much more cylindrical almost, you know pellet-like in shape,

Jordan So they’re not all beautiful and unique. Like regular snowflakes.

Kathryn Blaze Baum No, I spoke with a NASA planetary scientist and he said something like they’re far from beautiful

Jordan In your piece you included some of the basic conditions that need to be met for winter sports and I’d never seen these before could you just read us a few just to give us an idea?

Kathryn Blaze Baum Yeah, so you know as a spectator or somebody watching you know, the games on TV, you see snow you think all snow is the same. So not only have we just discovered that that’s not true. You know, natural snow is chemically or you know, just it looks different under a microscope than machine-made snow but also the kinds of snow that the different athletes want does differ by sport. So for example, if you take a look at freestyle ski and snowboard, it requires a minimum of one meter of packed or compressed snow as a base, and ideally more if temperatures are high. And then you know for ski jumping, you need snow cover over the plastic-covered jumps must be a minimum of 35 centimeters above the plastic mounting surface. For cross country ski events or Nordic combined there seems to be sort of no specific base no minimums, but there are requirements linked to things like you know, wind control, or you know, just a certain amount that has to just sort of be covering the course. Another thing that I thought was really interesting was the density of the snow differs depending on the sport or the venue. So I spoke with somebody from TechnoAlpin and they’re this Italy based company that’s making basically all the snow at the games and Michael Mayer, he was telling me that Beijing’s national Alpine Ski center for instance, it requires wet snow that can be packed down to form a hard and fast surface. So it requires like a ton of water because it’s a big surface area and require super dense snow, whereas the snow that they’re making for say the national biathlon center requires much lighter, drier snow, so it just weighs less by cubic meter.

Jordan So how critical are the snow cannons to getting these kind of conditions just right for winter sports venues and I’m not speaking here just of the Beijing Olympics, though we’ll talk about that but but for any sort of winter sports venue,

Kathryn Blaze Baum So snow guns and machine-made Snow has become quite integral to you know winter sports both recreational and competitive. Over the past few decades, snowmaking has become increasingly important to a ski resorts success. You know, the ski seasons are getting shorter, and the snow is just you know, a lot less predictable. So an estimated 95% of resorts around the world today rely to some extent on snow cannons. And I spoke with another snowmaking company smi snow makers International and they told me that they are installing their machines at ever-higher altitudes. And they’re developing increasingly more powerful systems because just the suitable weather windows are shorter than ever before.

Jordan What about these games themselves? How much of the snow that we’re seeing on our television is a manmade snow? And how does that compare to previous Olympics?

Kathryn Blaze Baum So yeah, I should be clear that you know previous winter games have made use of snowmaking machines, beginning with Lake Placid, New York in 1980. Even more recent games like Sochi, or Peongchang in 2018, were particularly known for their lack of natural snow. I’ve heard you know that it was somewhere in the order of 80 to 90% of the snow there didn’t fall from the sky. But this year’s competition in northern China is making history as the first feature virtually 100% machine-made snow. And by the end of the games, I’m told that approximately 2.5 million cubic meters of machine-made snow will cover the ski and snowboarding venues,

Jordan what will that do if anything to impact the performance of the athletes I think everybody has seen by now, kind of this picture that zoomed way out of a ski hill surrounded by cooling plants and just a whole lot of brown and it it doesn’t seem very natural. And I’m wondering if that affects anything on the ground.

Kathryn Blaze Baum From from what I can tell it sort of depends on the athlete and the sport that they’re competing in. So I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t watching these Olympic Games with like a totally fresh set of eyes. Analyzing you know, was that fall because the snow was icy or grittier or did it hurt more because the it was more compact. So I’m kind of watching it trying to you know, understand the implications for the athletes. So Alpine skiers, for example, you know, the downhill skiers, they want basically a icy parking lot type surface. That’s that’s what they want. So in some cases, athletes may actually prefer the feel of racing or training on machine-made snow, but then you might you know, talk to a biathlon athlete and they might say, it’s really challenging, it can be a lot icier. It hurts a lot more when I fall. You know, there’s no cushy snowbank. So it really does seem to sort of depend on the athlete. And I’m curious to see what they’re saying as the games progress. And then at the end, you know, when when athletes feel a bit more free to speak their minds. I’m curious to hear what the athletes will be saying. If anything about that.

Jordan Is there a way we can try to quantify how much the climate has impacted recent winter games? You mentioned,the previous ones have definitely used snow cannons, but maybe not to this extent. As the climate changes. How has the criteria for hosting the Winter Games changed? Like I imagine there are some previous hosts cities that just might not have the climate anymore?

Kathryn Blaze Baum Yes, that and that that is sort of borne out in research. So you know, climate change, attribution exercises are are challenging, it’s hard to sort of be able to decipher, you know, very specifically to what extent climate change impacted temperatures or extreme weather events, but there is absolutely no doubt that a warming planet is threatening winter sports and making it unlikely or even impossible that some previous hosts will be able to be the site of games in the future. So there was a recent report out of the University of Loughborough London called slippery slopes, and it’s cited research that found that only six of the 19 previous Winter Olympic locations could reliably host the games by the 2080s under a high greenhouse gas emission scenario. And Vancouver which held the Winter Olympics in 2010 and struggled to get adequate snow cover at one of the venues isn’t one of them. It’s actually considered non-reliable by as early as 2050. That’s, you know, quite striking because even advanced snowmaking technology would not be able to counteract the projected rising temperatures there

Jordan What does the IOC thinking or doing about this? Or do they just plan to rely as much as they need to on manmade snow wherever they have to?

Kathryn Blaze Baum That’s an interesting question. I mean, the Beijing Games seem to provide evidence that the IOC is ready and willing to move forward with competitions in places that don’t really get any natural snow. This wasn’t a surprise to the IOC when it approved China’s bid in the International Olympic Committee is 2015 analysis to post city bids for the 2022 games. The evaluation commission noted that China’s proposed mountain venues see low precipitation rates, minimal and short, cold seasons, it said, quote, The Zhangjiakou and Yanqing zones have minimal annual snowfall and for the games would rely completely on artificial snow. And it said it would require a quote, diversion of water from existing reservoirs that may impact other land uses. So it made this decision with eyes wide open. So it doesn’t seem as though the IOC would necessarily shy away from picking a location that doesn’t have the snow that we are more accustomed to seeing at previous winter games.

Jordan Is there a downside to just making all the snow you need? Like, what’s the problem? I know, it’s an existential kind of question of climate change and seeing these winter venues disappearing. But if we can make that snow, like, what’s the problem?

Kathryn Blaze Baum You know, there? There are a few ways to answer that question. And it does sort of depend on where you are. But you know, let’s look at China and Beijing there are issues around water usage. You know, snow makers say they basically quote-unquote, rent the water from nature in the winter and return it in the spring in the form of you know, snow melt and runoff. But some amount of water is inevitably lost to you know, evaporation, transpiration and into the groundwater system. So, you know, snowmaking inevitably moves water through the planet’s ecosystems in ways that nature just didn’t intend. And we don’t know yet. You know, what the effects are necessarily on animals and plant species and biodiversity in general. It just has to be disruptive to build pump stations and underground pipe networks, particularly in places that are mountainous and are in the case of the Beijing venues adjacent to a nature reserve. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Beijing is a water scarce place, it’s got roughly 36,000 gallons of fresh water per resident for context, the US has more like, you know, 2.3 million gallons per person. You know, there are issues around the environment. And there are also potential implications for athletes depending on their sport. As I’ve mentioned earlier, you know, there are some people who are concerned that we may see more and increasingly severe injuries. So we’ll sort of have to see how that plays out.

Jordan Has China addressed the issue of taking this water from a reservoir and where else it might be needed and how it would be used because that is ordinary people’s water? Right?

Kathryn Blaze Baum Well, so according to the Beijing organizing committees pregame sustainability report, which was released last month, local management water management authorities in the mountainous zones, concluded that water usage for the games would not affect regional water consumption. They said that all the water required for snowmaking comes from surface water collected from rainfall and snow melts. And then, you know, the New York Times actually just recently had a great piece on some of this stuff. And they looked at what some of the state-run media in China were saying. And the reporters of Times wrote that Beijing had diverted water from a reservoir to a river that had long been mostly dried up in the winter. And they said the reservoir had previously primarily supplied another reservoir, which is one of the largest stores of clean water for Beijing households. So it’s a little bit unclear. But the Beijing organizing committee says that it is a minimal amount of water that is diverted from regional water uses.

Jordan And how much does all this cost? Do we have an idea about that? Because I know whenever we talk about a city or country bidding for the games, it’s always ridiculously expensive. This must make it more so.

Kathryn Blaze Baum Yeah. And I did talk to TechnoAlpin, the company that’s making the snow for the games the value of his of their contract. I’m not I don’t want to mention because I don’t remember off the top of my head. But I know that the overall kind of snowmaking contract that involves you know, building the infrastructure, and all of that was roughly $60 million.

Jordan Is there any solution to this other than continuing to use tons of water to make snow or only accepting the increasingly remote options for hosting these games? Like what else is on the table? If anything?

Kathryn Blaze Baum I mean, that’s like, that’s a good question. As we know a certain amount of you know, global temperature rise is already baked in no matter what we do next. But of course, we should be taking measures to reduce the emissions associated with a warming planet so that we can stave off some of these changes in conditions. And as I said earlier, or you know, I was describing the snowmaking technology. It is an advanced immensely over the years when it comes to things like temperature, humidity and wind gauges that can increase energy efficiency and reduce water consumption. So, you know, I would think that there will be more advancements in that regard. One other thing is, you know, the use of natural additives could also reduce the amount of water needed. Because those products increase the number of, you know, what are called nucleation sites in the water and in turn the amount of snowflakes or snow that’s created. So, we may just see developments that perhaps make it more palatable to make this much snow. And we’ll just sort of have to see how the IOC evaluates bids going forward.

Jordan I kind of touched on the existential threat part of this earlier, but you know, you’re an environment reporter, you know, the situation we’re facing, as well as anyone, as you were reporting this, did you ever feel like you know, we’re probably going to have to be done with the Winter Games at some point like it’s unsustainable in the long run. So

Kathryn Blaze Baum I am the reporter, I’m also from Winnipeg. So snow is very much synonymous to me with winters I’ve I’ve personally found it very strange to watch the Beijing Games without the winter wonderland kind of ambience, you know, there are certainly some people who say the future of the games, the Winter Games is in peril. Of course, we hope that that’s not the case. I spoke with Lesley McKenna. She’s a three time snowboard halfpipe Olympian, for Britain. And, you know, she grew up skiing the slopes of the Scottish Highlands at a resort that today is experiencing shorter and increasingly unreliable ski seasons. And as she said it, quote, we’re losing winter. You know, some of the glaciers that she spent years skiing on have become so diminished that they’ve become almost unrecognizable. And you know, as she put it, there’s just no snow on it, it’s gone. So I think like, you know, the Olympics in general are going to be sort of in the crosshairs of climate change, whether it’s winter or summer games. I mean, I spoke with a an athlete, a Canadian athlete who competed in both the Winter and Summer Games. And he’s seeing effects on both sides. You know, he said, his sometimes the track in the summer is so hot, it burns his fingers. It’s something that we’re going to have to watch and keep an eye on going forward. And it’s going to be very interesting to see how it all plays out.

Jordan Last question, because it’s really hard these days not to end on a depressing note. So I’m going to try not to do that. Is there an opportunity here to use games like the Beijing Games, or whatever the next Winter Games will be as a chance to show people you know, what we’re at risk of losing and and offer it to them in a way that they can understand because they’re, they’re used to those, you know, beautiful Alpine vistas of the past?

Kathryn Blaze Baum Yeah, I think people do seem especially struck by this year’s games, you know, the, the image of the white ribbons of snow weaving through the parched brown terrain, and that the Nassau photos of the mountainous zones, those are pretty compelling sites. And I do think that there have been, you know, more conversations around the Olympics and sustainability and climate change this year than in previous years. And that’s, you know, also a symptom of the ramped up conversations that are having happening on this issue, generally. And I think, you know, one of the first steps towards you know, change your action is knowledge and an awareness. And so if the games are bringing some attention to this, then that that can only be a good thing.

Jordan Kathryn, thank you so much for this. I will watch the Olympics differently this week.

Kathryn Blaze Baum Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Jordan Kathryn Blaze Baum, environment reporter for The Globe and Mail. That was the big story. For more head to .thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can find us on Twitter witter @TheBigStoryFPN . You can email us click here!. This podcast is available absolutely everywhere in podcast players on smart speakers and just done a plain old website if that’s how you prefer to get it. It’s free, no matter where you want to listen. Stephanie Phillips is the lead producer of the big story. Joseph fish and Braden Alexander are our associate producers and Afua Mfodwo is joining us as an intern for a couple of months. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.