Earlier than the arrival of electrical fridges and freezers, individuals throughout Finland would noticed a block of ice from a river or lake earlier than the spring thaw, thickly cowl it in an insulating layer of sawdust and stack it in barns, pits or ice cellars to guard produce from the nice and cozy air of the summer time months.
Amid world heating and more and more unpredictable shorter winters, a contemporary twist on the standard jään säilöminen (ice preservation) method is now being touted as a method to save Europe’s struggling low- and medium-altitude ski resorts.
Final month, the big French alpine ski resort Alpe du Grand Serre within the Isère introduced it had been pressured to shut as a result of it couldn’t afford to change into a year-round vacation spot to offset its shorter winter season.
Finns have used sawdust to protect snow for many years, together with for winter sports activities. Extra not too long ago, they’ve deployed mats fabricated from extruded polystyrene, the identical materials utilized in dwelling insulation throughout the Nordic international locations, which the producers say lasts greater than 20 years.
The mats have been in use at ski resorts in Finland for a number of years – together with at Levi in Kittilä and Ruka in Kuusamo – however that is the primary season its builders, the Finnish firm Snow Safe, have equipped snow storage exterior Finland.
It’s being utilized in Tromsø Alpinpark in Krokelvdalen, Norway, and Saas-Payment, in Sastal, Switzerland, and from subsequent 12 months in Sierra Nevada in Andalucía, Spain, the southernmost ski resort in Europe, Tyrol Basin in Wisconsin and Ski Apache in New Mexico within the US.
The precept of such snow farming is to gather snow on the finish of the season to retailer and use initially of the subsequent. Marko Mustonen, the enterprise supervisor of Levi ski resort in Kittilä, stated it began recycling snow in 2016 to ensure it might open in time for the annual World Cup Slalom in November. The start of winter he stated, is much less and fewer predictable – even in northern Finland. “The timeframe once we get the actual winter, which suggests temperatures go beneath zero on a regular basis, it may be from early October to mid-November.”
Making snow “when Mom Nature permits us to make snow” additionally means the resort doesn’t have to depend on extra energy-intensive synthetic snow when temperatures are hotter, he added.
He stated snow ranges on the resort’s important trails this week had been the identical as they’d been on the similar level final 12 months, regardless of September and October being exceptionally heat and air temperatures going beneath zero solely prior to now few days. “As a result of we now have snow recycling we now have been capable of do precisely the identical as final 12 months for the beginning of the ski season.”
Levi was receiving inquiries from ski resorts round Europe about snow farming, Mustonen stated. “It’s getting increasingly more curiosity and we’re getting loads of ski resorts from the Alps and different European ski resorts asking about it,” he stated. “They’ve been curious to listen to the outcomes and the way we do it.”
Antti Lauslahti, the CEO of Snow Safe, stated with the ability to assure the resort’s opening date permits companies to reliably guide workers, and vacationers knew they wouldn’t be confronted with last-minute disappointment. “The start of the season has change into very unpredictable as a consequence of local weather change.”
Northern Finland is predicted to see extra snow on account of a hotter local weather placing extra moisture into the air, however the larger variability, the altering size of the season and the standard of snow pose important obstacles to winter sports activities.
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“It takes longer within the autumn to for the seasonal snow cowl, and it might soften sooner than earlier,” stated the geophysicist Sirpa Rasmus, a researcher on the College of Lapland’s Arctic Centre. “Snow might come within the autumn, however then soften partially or altogether, and time and again a number of instances.”
Kati Anttila, a geophysicist on the Finnish Atmosphere Institute, stated snow adjustments had been already affecting winter sports activities in Finland’s south, with broad variation between winters.
In Helsinki, the imply size of the snow season between 1991 and 2020 was 97 days. However in 2019, the snow season was simply 4 days lengthy. “In southern Finland it’s already very unsure to organise snowboarding competitions as a result of the snow situations are so unpredictable and there have already been winters within the south when there was hardly any snow,” she stated.
“This, mixed with the growing quantity of rain and lack of daylight within the winter, will make southern Finland a really darkish place throughout winter.”
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