Author warns of climate change affecting Utah

If Porter Fox could tell Utah ski resorts one thing, it would be to “stop burning fossil fuels.”

Fox, author of “Deep: The Story of Skiing and Future Snow” addressed an audience at Utah State University on Wednesday afternoon. His book focuses on climate change and its affect on snow in the states and around the world.

“The whole movement of the book is to save snow and trying to continue the tradition of skiing,” Fox said. “But it’s also more than that — it’s trying to get skiers to come together and realize we’re the

canaries in the coal mine. We’re the ones who are going to see the first visible changes of climate change in our backyard.”

Fox warned if the status quo of ignoring climate change continues, humans face a 7 to 11 degree temperature rise around the planet.

“In the last 10 years there has been a study between good snow years and bad snow years and what that means for states like Utah,” Fox said. “In Utah there is a 14 percent decrease in skier visits in a bad snow year. That bad snow year really isn’t that bad compared to what could happen.”

Fox said the 14 percent loss of the ski industry costs Utah’s economy $150 million.

“It hits us financially; it hits us in terms of what we love to do in our spare time, and it also hits us in terms of water resources here in Utah,” Fox said.

From his research and after talking with scientists, Fox said they are 100 percent certain climate change is caused by humans.

“In the next century there will be zero snowpack all winter long in Park City, Utah on our current track,” Fox said.

According to Ski Utah, the marketing firm owned and operated by the 14 statewide ski resorts, the resorts are committed to lessening their environmental impacts to reduce emissions generated by operations and make changes to help the effort toward climate change.

Also reported by Ski Utah, one of Utah’s highlights on renewable energy is Park City Mountain Resort, which has reduced its carbon emissions by 55,451 tons equaling more than 5.6 million gallons of gasoline.

In 2006 Randy Julander, the snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, was part of a study done for Utah to see if global warming was impacting snow levels. At the end of the study, Julander and Micheal Bricco came to the conclusion that there wasn’t a significant impact of global warming on Utah’s snowpack.

Julander said the study still applies today for Utah’s current snowpack situation, and statistically it would be extremely hard to prove that global warming is affecting Utah.

“You can’t attribute earlier snow melt to climate change,” Julander said. “Utah has had drought years leading to lower snowpack.”

It’s like comparing an ice cube to a 10-pound block of ice on a black driveway. The ice cube will melt faster than the block because it’s smaller, Julander explained.

Julander said a lot of people don’t take the smaller snowpack into account and automatically attribute the fast melting snow to rising temperatures. He does, however, believe the climate is changing and  greenhouse gases are a contributing factor.

“The biggest threat to Utah’s ski industry isn’t climate change,” Julander said. “It’s golf. At the end of the long winter, people are sick of the slushy hard snow and don’t want to ski on it. They're ready for a change.”

Along with Utah State, Fox presented at Weber State University on Tuesday and at Westminster College on Thursday.