Is the habitable zone for Winter Olympians shrinking?
Vancouver’s Cypress Mountain – one of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games venues – has had a bit too much green on the slopes, after an unseasonable amount of rainfall, necessitating implementation of the contingency plan: straw and wood to build the courses, with real and artificial snow layered on.
It’s an El Niño year, so slightly warmer than average; it happening in 2010 is something that wasn’t predictable seven years out, when Vancouver got the games.
There will be some hardcore weather forecasting going on this year:
With a hefty $9-million price tag, state-of-the-art forecasting equipment was installed at every outdoor venue in 2005, enabling meteorologists to pinpoint data so precisely they can predict weather patterns for each of the six specific Olympic sites.
“We’ve got our grids down to, like 100 metres,” said Mr. Doyle. “So for every 100 metres in space and on the surface, we can prepare a forecast. That’s an Olympic first. It’s never been done before. We’ve raised the bar.”
Average temperature in February in Vancouver: 4.8 °C. If it gets – and stays – warmer, the snowboarders will have to migrate.
