Thursday, July 30, 2009

Alps face snow loss threat: research

ABC News Online, Thu Jul 30

A researcher is predicting a 96 per cent decrease in the amount of snow in Victoria's alpine areas, in 60 years.

Associate Professor Catherine Pickering says the alpine region is one of Australia's areas most threatened by climate change.

She says reliance on snow-making is not financially or economically sustainable.

"We've predicted by 2070 to lose something like 96 per cent of the snow cover of the Australian Alps, so it's going to be much sooner than we think," she said.

"Unfortunately because our current emissions and our current rises in temperatures are at the high end of the predictions, it's definitely coming to us sooner and faster.

"By 2020, we've found that the amount of water that the ski resorts are going to need to make snow, just to match current conditions, is going to exceed the amount of water that's used by Canberra."

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