The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) partnered with the United Nations’ weather agency on Thursday to help national ski federations, venues and race organisers better understand weather forecasting to manage natural and artificial snow.
wintersportsnews: FIS cancelled 26 of its 616 World Cup races across all disciplines last season for weather-related reasons. Now it’s working with the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) “to highlight the far-reaching impacts of rising global temperatures on snow and ice cover and to establish practical initiatives”. It is the first time the WMO has partnered with an international sports federation.
“The climate crisis is obviously far bigger than FIS — or sports, for that matter: it is a genuine crossroads for mankind,” the organisation’s president Johan Eliasch said in a statement.
“It is true, though, that climate change is, simply put, an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding. We would be remiss if we did not pursue every possible effort that is rooted in science and objective analysis.”
An online meeting is set for 7 November, and the bodies will host an event for all 137 national ski associations, venue managers and event organisers to look at the issue next month.
Snow sports on thin ice
Following last year’s season marked with cancelled races and lack of snow, Overall World Cup winners Mikaela Shiffrin, Federica Brignone and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde —together with hundreds of other snow athletes— signed a letter addressed to the FIS demanding action over climate change.
The letter, written by Austrian downhiller and ambassador for the nonprofit organisation Protect Our Winters Julian Schütter, asked the organisation to adapt to the changing climate, set a more geographically reasonable schedule to reduce emissions and requested FIS to create a sustainability department.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last year warned only 10 countries will be able to host snow sports by 2040 because of the impact of climate change. The organisation is working to identify climate-reliable Games locations and other measures to protect the Olympic Winter Games.
A case study distributed last year by the WMO reported a “moderate to high risk” threat for winter sports within just 13 years for Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Italian resort that will host women’s ski racing at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics and is the signature race of the annual women’s circuit.
The partnership between FIS and WMO will work to address the growing concern over the future of snow sports and set up practical ways to boost dialogue between science and sports.
“Ruined winter vacations and cancelled sports fixtures are —literally— the tip of the iceberg of climate change,” said WMO chief Celeste Saulo. “Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities and economies and will have increasingly serious repercussions at local, national and global level for centuries to come.”
