There may have been a slow start to this year’s snow season in Utah, but a new look at the impact of climate change on potential Winter Games sites shows the state is still among a limited number of locations worldwide that could be capable of hosting for decades to come.
“It is among the most climate reliable locations in North America and globally,” said Daniel Scott, the co-author of a 2024 climate change study supported by the International Olympic Committee that’s just been updated.
But the findings also show that may no longer be the case by the 2080s, despite the interest expressed by Gov. Spencer Cox and others for Utah becoming a permanent Winter Games host should the IOC choose to start rotating the quadrennial event among selected sites.
Just four locations studied around the world are expected to remain consistently cold enough then to keep or make snow through the second part of the Winter Games, the Paralympics for athletes with disabilities held in March, if greenhouse gas emissions are high.
The only site in North America determined to have a reliably cold climate under that scenario?
It’s not Utah but Lake Louise, a ski resort about 114 miles from Calgary in Canada’s Banff National Park, Scott told the Deseret News. He declined to name the other locations but said two are at a “high elevation” in Europe and one is in Japan.
Site-specific information was not included in the study at the request of the IOC, said Scott, a professor in the geography and environmental management program at Canada’s University of Waterloo.
Could Utah host the Olympics in the 2050s and 2080s?
Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, said a future Utah Winter Games under those conditions could still be possible with some modifications, similar to those suggested in the study update.
“In the high emissions scenario, we would likely need to adjust the Games calendar in order to begin the Paralympics sooner,” Bullock said. “We have several options, including starting the Olympic Games earlier, or shortening the gap between the Olympics and Paralympics.”
He said Utah is in a strong position to become part of any future Winter Games rotation, “given all the factors to be considered, including how we could effectively manage a 2080 calendar for hosting the Olympics and Paralympics.”
Scott also told the Deseret News that Snowbasin Resort and Solider Hollow Nordic Center were the two Utah locations among 93 worldwide specified by the IOC. Other U.S. locations were Colorado’s Aspen and Beaver Creek ski resorts and Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire.
Both of the Utah competition venues were used in the 2002 Winter Games and are expected to fill similar roles, with Snowbasin hosting Alpine skiing and Soldier Hollow hosting nordic skiing when the state once again hosts the Olympics and Paralympics in 2034.
“If there was to be a standing roster of rotational Games, Utah certainly would be one that would stand a great chance of being part of that rotation,” with the caveat that “if the Paralympics were still held in March, it might become a bit more risky.”
— DanielDaniel Scott, co-author of 2024 climate change study supported by IOC
Scott, who conducted the study with Robert Steiger of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said by the 2050s, only 45 of the 93 locations could count on enough snow and cold temperatures during a February Olympics if emissions are at a high level.
By the 2080s, the number of climate-reliable locations falls to 30. Even if the goal of lower levels of emissions set by the Paris Climate Agreement, which the U.S. withdrew from last year, are achieved, only 55 could host by the 2050s and 54 by the 2080s, Scott said.
Utah remains in the mix for the Olympics through the 2080s, he said, although conditions at Solider Hollow would be marginal in the 2050s and become unreliable by the 2080s if emissions are high.
Olympic snow stockpiles and Soldier Hollow
The Paralympics, though, are another story.
For Utah, if the Paralympics are held as usual in March, Solider Hollow’s conditions would be unreliable in both the 2050s and 2080s, Scott said, while Snowbasin would be considered reliable only under low emissions and become unreliable under high emissions in the 2080s.
The update to the study looks at the impact of moving the start date for the Olympics and Paralympics by about three weeks, a time shift that Scott said would provide a “big improvement” in conditions at a Paralympics.
Starting the Olympics in January and the Paralympics in February would be a boost to Utah’s climate reliability as a Winter Games host beyond 2034, the professor said. But he wouldn’t stop there.
Replacing Soldier Hollow with “a more climate reliable, higher elevation venue would strengthen future bids from a climatic perspective,” Scott said. Even under an earlier time frame, he said conditions at Soldier Hollow would only shift from unreliable to marginal under low emissions.
Rather than finding a new venue for future bids, Bullock said there are contingency plans for bolstering Soldier Hollow’s snowpack if temperatures climb, first put in place for the 2002 Winter Games.
“The biggest risk venues for the Winter Games are the nordic events because you can only go so high. These are endurance events, so there’s altitude restrictions,” he said, adding that at roughly 6,000 feet, “we’re kind of at the limit of how high we can go.”
That means organizers have to be ready for less than ideal weather, Bullock said. For 2002, he said, snow was stockpiled for the venue about an hour away at a much higher and colder spot near Strawberry Reservoir.
“We actually practiced,” said Bullock, who served as chief operating officer for Utah’s first Winter Games before leading the successful bid for 2034. “The year before, it got warm in March and we trucked in snow. So there are ways.”
Snow will also be collected ahead of the 2034 Winter Games and stored for use at Soldier Hollow if needed, he said, noting other outdoor competition sites for the Olympics and Paralympics are at much higher altitudes.
Scott said the ability to make snow at a venue “is still preferred, but in an emergency snow can be brought in from other areas to supplement what is there.” That happened at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver when it became too warm to make snow at a venue.
And Sochi, best known as a Black Sea resort with some of Russia’s warmest temperatures until it was chosen to host the 2014 Winter Games, saved snow from a previous winter under a protective covering, he said.
Utah’s ‘snow fail’ this winter
Utah has already seen record high temperatures this winter and just before Christmas, the freestyle skiing World Cup scheduled for Jan. 16-18 at Deer Valley was moved out of state due to a lack of snow.
The competitions are now being held in Lake Placid, New York, and the Waterville Valley Resort in New Hampshire.
In a statement, the Switzerland-based international ski federation known as FIS blamed “challenging early season weather conditions” for the decision, citing the impact of “insufficient snowpack and persistently warm temperatures” on the resort’s snowmaking abilities.
“Given the substantial snow volume, infrastructure, and operational resources required to safely deliver a World Cup caliber moguls and aerials venue, current conditions do not allow the event to be delivered at Deer Valley to the standards required for elite international competition.”
Deer Valley, an Olympic venue in 2002 and set to be again in 2034, has hosted the World Cup for nearly three decades. This year, the event is being held earlier than usual to serve as an Olympic qualifier for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy, that begin Feb. 6.
“East beats West: Lake Placid gains World Cup ski events as Utah snow fails,” a headline in the Adirondack Explorer declared after the announcement. Lake Placid hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Games and some New York state lawmakers want to bring the Olympics back.
“We’re very climate aware.”
— Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games
Scott said the study suggests there’s interest in future regional or multinational bids, such as Denver teaming up with western Canadian venues, or Montreal or Quebec joining with the New Hampshire ski resort or Lake Placid, whose sliding track is Milan-Cortina’s official back up.
He said the study did not take into account the possibility of rotating the Winter Games among a permanent set of hosts. The idea was raised by the IOC in 2022, when a decision on advancing Utah and other Winter Games bids was delayed for the climate change study.
It remains to be seen what a group appointed by new IOC President Kirsty Coventry to consider changes to the Olympic program will have to say about the need for rotating the Games. But Scott indicated Utah would be a serious contender.
“If there was to be a standing roster of rotational Games, Utah certainly would be one that would stand a great chance of being part of that rotation,” the professor said, with the caveat that “if the Paralympics were still held in March, it might become a bit more risky.”
Utah’s Olympic organizers ‘very climate aware’
The 2034 Winter Games are set to start Feb. 10, but Bullock said an earlier date was considered and rejected for a different climate concern.
“One of the questions we had in the bid was when do we start the Games. Do we start Feb. 10 or Feb. 3. Initially, we were looking at Feb. 3,” he said, but then reviewed the timing of inversions, the wintertime layer of polluted air that gets trapped in the valleys along the Wasatch Front.
“The inversion risk basically disappears mid-February. So we said let’s go the later date because we’ll have a lower risk of inversion. That puts a little more pressure on the back end in terms of climate in March, but we think we’ll still be in great shape for 2034 in March,” Bullock said.
Organizers of any Utah Winter Games beyond 2034, he said, will face “a future trade-off” between reducing the risk of inversion as they showcase the state to the world or too-high temperatures at the Paralympics.
In 2002, he said Utah came close to welcoming the world with an inversion, with gunky air accumulated in the Salt Lake Valley the day before the Feb. 8 Opening Ceremonies at the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium.
“It was blown out Feb. 8 at 4 a.m., when a frontal system came through and put a fresh blanket of snow on the mountains,” Bullock said. “And then we were great. No inversion. So we’re very climate aware.”