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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we turn to our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday on the show. Spring-like temperatures will warm up New York and New Jersey this week ahead of a powerful rainstorm, we are told. Upstate New York is looking at record-high temperatures, but it's still winter, even if there's little snow to show for it. The lack of snow is closely tied to persistently mild weather even if there has been a lot of precipitation in the form of rain.

According to Washington Post, this winter could end up as the warmest on record in the contiguous United States, the 48 states, driven by the El Nino climate pattern and human-caused climate change. Now, among some of the most impacted industries, of course, are your favorite ski resort areas. It's school breaks like last week, as well as three-day weekends, like President's Day that can make or break the entire year for some of those businesses.

Making snow has historically contributed to the very emissions that cause climate change and the lack of natural snow. Joining us now on how ski resorts battling a lack of snow due to global warming are making snow using greener technologies. Our guest is Tik Root, senior staff writer at Grist, a nonprofit news organization covering climate, justice, and solutions. Tik, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Tik Root: Thanks for having me. I'm bummed about this warm weather, but it makes for an interesting conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Bummed long term, even if it's a nice day when you walk out, and it feels good In the short term. Listeners, I want to open up the phones right away. I wonder if any of you out there tuning in right now have worked at ski resorts anytime in the past, or do so currently, or have any experience with artificial snowmaking. How has the technology changed to become more efficient and greener, if you believe that that's even real, or anyone else who keeps a close eye on the snowfall at your favorite ski resort?

What are you seeing over time? How has that changed the experience of skiing or snowboarding for you or anything else you want to share or ask? 212-433-WNYC. Call or text 212-433-9692. Tik, I see you write about a recent study that found that much of the northern hemisphere is heading off what you call a snow loss cliff, where even marginal increases in temperature could prompt a dramatic loss of snow. Where are those areas?

Tik Root: I think it's going to be across the northern hemisphere in North America for sure. I think for skiing-related areas, I think you're going to start to see it in the Rockies in California. I think you're going to see it in the Northeast as well. It definitely, I think, if I read the study correctly, the west is going to be hit particularly hard with this snow cliff. I think it's going to be felt everywhere. It's something we're already feeling if you look outside today and see brown on the ground rather than snow.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote that by one estimate only about half of the ski areas of the northeast today will be economically viable by mid-century, so that's a big deal.

Tik Root: Right. That's a huge deal. There were 65 million ski visits last year across North America, and these ski towns rely on this. This can be a huge, if not only part of their economy. If those go away, skiing is a luxury, but you could see entire communities start to dwindle.

Brian Lehrer: Snowmaking, and we'll get into-- have some aspects of snowmaking or getting a bit greener. Can you explain by way of background the amount of power and the scale that it takes to make snow for a resort?

Tik Root: There are two major components that go into making snow. One is the water and then the other is compressed air that they need to help put that water on the hill. Snowmaking started in the '50s and '60s, as a backyard enterprise. Over time, we found new and different ways to do it. They used to require so much power that people were using diesel generators to pump both the water and compress the air, but over time, they've gotten efficient enough that electricity does the job. I visited a small ski area in Southern Vermont, and they were still using enough electricity to power around 100 homes, and that's with the more efficient system. It's definitely energy intensive. Ski areas bigger than that are going to use many times that amount of energy. It's by no means a small energy suck, but it's definitely a lot less than it used to be.

Brian Lehrer: The switch from diesel to electricity was really based on smarter business solutions for the resorts, I gather. They're better, but still take a lot of power with the stats you were just giving us, like powering 100 homes. Is there such a thing as green snowmaking?

Tik Root: I think there's such a thing as greener snowmaking. I think with anything, you can look at both the improvement and the actual net power that's being used. Ski areas, I found over reporting this story, love to talk about their efficiency gains, but are reticent to share how much power they actually use. Which I think is important to know the denominator, just to put it in perspective, because again, skiing is obviously a luxury, and people should, I think, know how much power goes into creating that luxury.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's Timothy in East Berkshire, Vermont. You're on WNYC. Hi. Timothy.

Timothy: Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. I can see JP Peak from my backyard. I've been skiing all of my life. I'm 61. I've been skiing since I was four. I taught skiing, goodness, for close to 40 years. The thing about snowmaking is that it is an egregiously inefficient process. You need massive diesel compressors, and I'm talking massive. I'm talking cat diesels the size of my house. Of course, then you're sucking up water. It's a very inefficient process. The winters, they're not what they used to be in any way, shape or form. I can count on one hand how many good powder days we've had up here at JP.

I can tell you that east of the Mississippi JP arguably gets the most natural snowfall in the country, east of the Mississippi, but the winters aren't what they used to be. As far as efficiency goes, what they're touting, yes, they're trying to make it more efficient. They've got more efficient guns and things like that. You only have a fixed budget. It costs so much day and money. You could only spend any amount. I don't care if it's JP, I don't care if it's Vail, I don't care if it's [unintelligible 00:08:20], whatever. You only have a fixed budget and [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Timothy, with all your experience and involvement, are you seeing yet ski resorts or ski-related businesses fail in addition to whatever the climate effects are?

Timothy: Please repeat that, Brian. I apologize.

Brian Lehrer: I'm just asking if you're seeing ski-related businesses failing yet in Vermont.

Timothy: Yes, I have seen it. There's only a finite set amount of well-established businesses that seem to be surviving. I see these new businesses show up, new restaurants, so on and so forth. They only last about three years, and then they're caput.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Timothy, I'm going to leave it there. Thanks for all the insight. Peter in Brooklyn who skis in the Catskills, you're on WNYC. Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I was wondering if your guest has any insight if we could ever see more snowmaking infrastructure for cross-country skiing. That's how I learned growing up in Minnesota given how little snowfall we've had the last several winters. There's just been really no cross-country skiing except for a few days in the Catskills.

Brian Lehrer: Boy, that would be cross-country skiing heaven, I imagine, or epicenter, because no mountains, but lots of snow in Minnesota. Yes?

Peter: Yes, that's right. My local resort up here in Belleayre does an excellent job for downhill, but I just don't know if there's anything we can ever see for cross-country area.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, thank you. How about a distinction between cross-country and downhill? Do they make snow for cross-country? I don't even know, Tik.

Tik Root: Cross-country snowmaking is much more limited. It's upwards of 80, 90-ish percent of downhill ski areas make snow. I know in Vermont, there's only about two or three cross-country places that make snow. I think part of the issue is economic. The lift ticket at Vail can cost $300, whereas a lift ticket to go cross-country skiing is $30. The payback on installing snowmaking maybe isn't as great.

Also, I think that running deep, piping over vast amounts of areas can quickly get more expensive. A downhill mountain has a limited amount of kilometers or miles that the pipe needs to run, whereas some of the cross-country areas are really sprawling. I personally don't expect to see a lot of cross-country areas be able to afford to put in snowmaking systems. That cost millions of dollars, but it's technically not impossible, and you could see them do it.

Brian Lehrer: One more call from one more skier. Casey in Fort Lee, you're on WNYC. You can't ski in Fort Lee, right, Casey?

Casey: No, you can't ski in Fort Lee. I just pulled over when I heard this because I'm on my way right now to go skiing in Mountain Creek in Vernon, New Jersey. Their mountain is completely open. They have managed to put down a great snow base from over four peaks. In the face of what we all see here is bad. I'm a lifelong skier, and every year the season is slightly shorter and you have to hit it while it's right.

When the snow dumps, you have to go skiing that day or the day after if you can somehow manage it. Previously it was cold. It stayed cold, but at this point on, if you want to see state-of-the-art snowmaking, Mountain Creek has done an excellent job. They cover the entire hill. They blow extra when it's below freezing because so much of it now is above freezing. When you go out to go ski you're on spring conditions essentially.

When it gets cold, they just turn on the guns, blow it, and they plow around a lot. It's surprising how much now it's almost like moving the snow from one side to the other, not just wanting the [unintelligible 00:12:41] of it. No, if you want to see state-of-the-art snowmaking in a fully open mountain. They have managed to keep the community going. They have managed to keep the ski teams going. All the kids in the local area whose moms drop them off at three o'clock and pick them back up at seven for dinner. It's really impressive to see what they've done. Every area has had this problem. We also go up in Vernon frequently, and if you look at Stratton, Stratton also had to do a massive snowmaking because, at that point, they had millions of dollars of homes sitting below their hill. If they don't have snow, those homes are worthless.

Brian Lehrer: Funny enough, couple of friends of mine went out to Vernon over Presidents Day weekend and it had just snowed. They said there was some nice snow on the ground, but gone by now for sure, so good luck out there. To wrap it up, Tik, Casey didn't bring up the climate aspect. He just gave us a good example of what gargantuan efforts it takes now to keep a lot of people's favorite ski places covered with snow. Do you think that this is being regulated or needs to be regulated in defense of the climate by government?

Tik Root: That's a really interesting question. I'll start by saying that the case of New Jersey is interesting because the Mid-Atlantic has actually been a real driver of snowmaking innovation because they see these shortest temperature windows to make snow, and so they've really been driving a lot of the efficiency that then got adopted by the Northeast and now is getting adopted by the West as they see less snow out there and more need for snowmaking. It's going to be a really interesting question. You do already see some government regulation of snowmaking.

I know that ski areas in Vermont at least are subject to certain electricity rates, where during peak demand, they actually have to shut off their snowmaking systems, which is ironic partly because you can make the best snow as the temperatures drop, but electricity loads go up. Sometimes they have to curtail their snowmaking at the perfect temperatures for snowmaking, so it puts them in a little bit of a bind. You do see studies go into water use before systems go in, et cetera.

I think that as this increases, you might see more and more attention to it, but you're also, I think, going to continue to see energy demand decrease. Automation is the next frontier. Hunter Mountain in Upstate New York has actually been on the forefront of automation. Also, some of the other ones in the Mid-Atlantic like Pennsylvania and Maryland have a lot of automation. You're going to see snowmaking systems run for less time to produce the same amount of snow, and hopefully, that will bring down electricity demands as well. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if people start paying more attention to this on the regulatory front as well.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there for today for our climate story of the week. Our guest has been Tik Root, senior staff writer at Grist, climate-oriented nonprofit news organization. His latest piece is titled Greener Snowmaking Is Helping Ski Resorts Tackle Climate Change. Thanks so much for coming on, Tik.

Tik Root: Thanks for having me.

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