Waiting for Snow

8220;Of course I8217;m nervous about the snow, but what am I supposed to do?8221; said Signe Kramheller-Reisch, as she walked in a field outside her family8217;s hotel, wearing suede shoes and a resigned expression. 8220;We have classic winters and we have nonclassic winters.8221;

This season is certainly shaping up as a nonclassic, but it may be a milestone of another kind. The record warmth8212;in some places autumn temperatures were three degrees Celsius above average8212;has brought home the profound threat of climate change to Europe8217;s ski industry.

If venturing outdoors without a jacket is not enough evidence, there are two new studies8212;one that says the Alps are the warmest they have been in 1,250 years and another that predicts that an increase of a few more degrees would leave most Alpine resorts with too little snow to survive.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsored the second study, stopped short of predicting ruin for Europe8217;s ski industry. But Bruno Abegg, a researcher at the University of Zurich who was involved in it, said low-lying resorts faced an insuperable problem. 8220;Let8217;s put it this way,8221; he said. 8220;I wouldn8217;t invest in Kitzbuuml;hel.8221;

People here have heard baleful predictions for years. Because Kitzbuuml;hel sits in a low Tyrolean valley, at an altitude of only 2,624 feet, it is viewed as particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

For Kitzbuuml;hel, a glamorous dowager among Alpine resorts, the only comfort in the warm spell is that it has afflicted rivals at all altitudes. Val d8217;Isegrave;re, in France, and St. Moritz, in Switzerland8212;which are twice as high8212;were forced to cancel recent World Cup races for lack of snow.

Among the hoteliers, bartenders and others who depend on the ski trade, the long wait for winter has summoned a stoicism that comes from long experience with the vagaries of Mother Nature.

8220;This just happens every few winters,8221; said Josef Brandstauml;tter, the owner of a mountaintop hotel, as he nursed a beer at a bar in town. 8220;We know the snow will come.8221;

A few guests have canceled bookings for Christmas week, according to the local tourism office. But most are holding on to see if the weather changes. If it does not snow by New Year8217;s Day, however, people here say the trickle of cancellations could turn into a flood.

As for the broader threat of global warming, townspeople react with a mixture of fatalism and mild skepticism to studies like the one coordinated by Austria8217;s Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, which says the Alps have not been this warm since the eighth century.

Kramheller-Reisch, whose great-grandfather introduced skiing to Kitzbuuml;hel in the 19th century, cited a letter her grandfather wrote in the 1920s, in which he said farmers could not haul wood from the mountains down to the village because there was no snow for their sleds. While she does not dispute the inevitability of global warming, Kramheller-Reisch, 51, said that for the ski industry in Austria, 8220;This is not going to be a problem in our lifetimes.8221;

Climatologists, however, say the warming trend will become dramatic by 2020. The new studies are alarming, suggesting that the Alps are warming twice as fast as the average in the rest of the world. In 1980, 75 per cent of Alpine glaciers were advancing; now, 90 per cent are retreating.

Reinhard Bouml;hm, a meteorologist who worked on the study of Alpine temperatures, said one explanation for the disparity was the region8217;s location in the middle of the European continent, far from any oceans, which react more moderately to global warming trends.

Temperatures in the Alps began heating up around 1980, Bouml;hm said, after an uncommonly cool period that started in 1950. This coincided with the major development of the European ski industry.

Despite the evidence of rapid change, Bouml;hm said there was little talk of how to prepare for global warming in the resorts. 8220;Nobody in ski tourism plans out further than 10 years,8221; he said. 8220;If you ask people whether they are interested in the climate in 50 years, they say no.8221; The OECD study may focus minds. In Austria today, it says, 83 per cent of ski resorts are 8220;snow-reliable,8221; meaning they have enough snow for 100 days a season. If temperatures increased one degree Celsius, only 67 per cent would have enough; if they rose two degrees, only half would.

Like most resorts, Kitzbuuml;hel has focused on offering more alternatives to skiing. Most hotels now have saunas and steam rooms befitting the Romans. There is an elaborate town sports center, with curling, climbing and ice hockey. Kramheller-Reisch has put in conference facilities.

Kitzbuuml;hel has invested heavily in snowmaking equipment, which will soon cover all the major slopes. The resort has a few advantages: Because farmers use the slopes to graze cattle and sheep in the summer, there are fewer rocks than at other resorts. That means Kitzbuuml;hel needs less snow cover.

Snowmaking, of course, is still hostage to the weather. Even with the machines running full tilt, Kitzbuuml;hel will be able to open only 6 or 7 of its 54 lifts this weekend. And snowmaking is extremely expensive, prompting a debate in town about who should pay the bill.

Climate change need not end in Kitzbuuml;hel8217;s extinction, said Georg Hechenberger, a director of the company that runs the resort8217;s cable cars and lifts. One theory, he noted, is that rising temperatures will disrupt the Gulf Stream, plunging northern Europe into a period of chillier weather.

8220;In that scenario,8221; he said, 8220;low-lying ski resorts are in good shape. You8217;re not going to feel comfortable at high altitudes.8221;

8211;MARK LANDLER

Nothing in it for Inuits

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an arm of the Organisation of American States, has declined to rule on a complaint by native Arctic peoples that global warming caused by gases from the United States violates their right to sustain their traditional ways. The agency told the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, which represents 150,000 people in northern Alaska, Canada, Russia and Greenland, that there was insufficient evidence of harm. Inuit leaders said they would seek a hearing to present more evidence. NYT