MONTE CIMONE, Italy - Monte Cimone, a popular ski resort in Italy's Apennine Mountains, invested five million euros in artificial snowmaking before the winter season in an attempt to stave off the impact of global warming.The snow cannon proved useless because the water droplets they fire into the air need freezing weather for them to fall to the ground as snow, and until mid-January the temperature never fell below zero Celsius.
Legambiente calculates that the annual water consumption of Italy's Alpine pistes may soon be as much as a city of a million people, such as Naples.The power required to provide artificial snow to all Europe's Alpine resorts would equal the annual consumption of 130,000 families of four people, said Mario Tozzi, a geologist and conservationist.
Italy has around 220 ski resorts with at least five lifts, putting it third in the world behind the US and France, according to the 2022 International Report on Snow and Mountain Tourism.Italy started to develop artificial snow machines around 1990 after two almost snowless years in the Alps. It is now a world leader. One of its main producers, TechnoAlpin, supplied the 2022 Winter Olympic games in Beijing.
It is testing the device on nursery slopes at Bolbeno, Italy's lowest resort at an altitude of just 600 metres. Five Spanish environmentalist groups are lobbying the European Union to block the use of 26 million euros of EU money to fund a project to join two ski resorts in the fast- warming Pyrenees mountain range.
"In this context adaptation strategies based on diversification of mountain activities and revenues are crucial," the report said.The European Alps, where temperatures are rising faster than in most of the world, will become increasingly popular in summer as Mediterranean beaches and cities grow uncomfortably hot, climate and tourism experts forecast.
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