By the end of the 21st century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that human activity’s continued emission of greenhouse gases will significantly raise surface air temperatures on our planet at various scales, from local to global (IPCC, 2021). This warming will also lead to increased evaporation rates and subsequent water vapor storage in the lower atmosphere. Consequently, precipitation events will intensify, with more falling as rain rather than snow as temperatures increase. Additionally, thunderstorms, mid-latitude cyclones, monsoons, and hurricanes will experience changes in severity and location. Collectively, these alterations will significantly alter the spatial patterns of precipitation on our planet.

            Being able to forecast how this climate change will influence human socio-economic systems is important to assess potential impact to humans. This information will also allow for the development of effective adaptation and mitigation strategies. One human socio-economic activity that may be significantly influenced by changes in temperatures and patterns of precipitation is recreational skiing and snowboarding. Skiing and snowboarding are activities whose popularity and level of enjoyment are strongly determined by weather and climate conditions. 

            Limited research has been conducted to analyze historical surface air temperature and snowfall data at ski resorts to identify trends consistent with human-induced climate change.  Geographically, these studies have focused on ski resorts in Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, and eastern Canada.  This research often relied on proxy data from nearby meteorological stations or data collected at the ski resort itself to evaluate climate change.  The findings indicate that human-induced climate change is indeed causing warmer temperatures and reduced snowfall at the studied ski resorts.  Future predictions are made by extending historical trends or extrapolating climate model outputs on a regional scale. These forecasts suggest a continued trend of warmer temperatures and changing snowfall and rainfall patterns for the ski resorts examined into the 21st century. 

            Accurate modeling of the climatic impacts of human-induced climate change in mountainous regions is feasible through the use of regional modeling procedures and statistical-dynamical downscaling techniques. The research presented on this website primarily utilizes interpolated downscaled climate data available from the software database ClimateBC (Wang et al., 2016; Mahoney et al., 2022; and Wang et al., 2025). With the exceptional data provided by this software, we were able to establish virtual meteorological stations at base, middle, and peak elevations for major ski resorts in British Columbia. These stations were used to analyze historical data and generate future climate simulation model forecasts. ClimateBC offers monthly scale climate datasets spanning the historic period from 1901 to 2025, as well as future climate datasets for the remainder of the 21st century. These datasets are generated by sophisticated climate simulation models employed in the 6th Assessment Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2021).

            The primary objective of this website is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of climate change trends at major ski resorts in British Columbia, spanning from 1901 to 2025 and extending into the future. The data used for this analysis is primarily sourced from ClimateBC. A secondary analysis was conducted on historical data to investigate whether specific extreme climate variations observed in certain years could be attributed to the influence of El Niño and La Niña during the winter season. For Silver Star and Whistler Blackcomb ski resorts, historical daily climate data from official Environment and Climate Change Canada weather stations was analyzed to determine if climate change is altering the weather at these locations. A stochastic weather generator called LARS-WG 8.0 was then employed to generate weather forecasts for Silver Star and Whistler Blackcomb for the 21st century under two different future greenhouse gas emission scenarios using a eight climate model ensemble.

            According to data presented on this website, human-induced climate change is having a more profound impact on coastal British Columbian ski resorts compared to their inland counterparts. This disparity arises from the fact that coastal mountains are situated in warmer, wetter maritime climates, where even minor temperature rises can transform snow into rain. In contrast, interior British Columbian ski resorts experience much colder winters, are located at higher elevations, and maintain a dependable snowpack later into the ski season. Consequently, coastal ski hills in British Columbia are already experiencing significant snowfall declines in the early 21st century, while many interior resorts are expected to remain largely unaffected for several decades. However, the worst-case climate change scenario will probably lead to a significant decline in the quality of ski experiences at interior ski resorts by the end of the 21st century.

References

IPCC. 2021. Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2391 pp. 

Mahony, C.R., T. Wang, A. Hamann, and A.J. Cannon. 2022. A CMIP6 ensemble for downscaled monthly climate normals over North America. International Journal of Climatology 42 (11), 5871-5891. DOI:10.1002/joc.7566

Wang, T., A. Hamann, and Z. Sang. 2025. Monthly high‐resolution historical climate data for North America since 1901. International Journal of Climatology 45 (3), e8726. DOI: 10.1002/joc.8726

Wang, T., A. Hamann, D. Spittlehouse, and C. Carroll. 2016. Locally downscaled and spatially customizable climate data for historical and future periods for North America. PLoS ONE 11(6): e0156720. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0156720