Many of the results from the latest research into the effect of climate change on snow in the Alps make grim reading for skiers and snowboarders.

According to the study, published on February 16 in The Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union, the Alps could lose as much as 70 per cent of their snow cover by 2099 as temperatures rise due to increased greenhouse gas emissions. The ski season may also start up to a month later and finish up to three months earlier, and the snow line may be up to 1,000m higher, it adds. On a more positive note, it says if emissions continue to be cut the amount of snow lost could drop to 30 per cent.

As skiers and snowboarders know all too well, the amount of snow in resort when they go on holiday is increasingly hard to predict, varying hugely from season to season and month to month. Many study snow reports intensely, and try to maximise the chance of a holiday with plentiful cover by heading to a high-altitude, snow-sure ski resort.

This winter the Alps suffered a very slow start to the season for the third year in a row, with December skiers sliding down ribbons of artificial snow surrounded by green pastures. But the snow did inevitably arrive – this season’s drought started to break in January, and the latest research came as skiers and snowboarders in Europe were generally enjoying excellent mid-season conditions, with fresh snow under sunny skies in the February half-term weeks.

A woman skies down on an slope in a snowless landscape on January 2, 2017 in the Swiss Alps resort of Les Crosets Credit: AFP

In the study, scientists based at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale, both in Switzerland, used projections for temperature and snowfall in two contrasting Swiss areas – covering resorts such as Grindelwald and Davos - to predict future snow cover, looking at three timeframes between 2020 and 2099, and taking into account three levels of greenhouse gas.

The worst-case scenarios show almost no snow below 1,200m by 2099 - many resorts have lower base villages and slopes than this. Many also have higher slopes, but if global warming doesn’t slow down, Alpine slopes reaching up to 3,000m or more could have 50 per cent less snow by the end of the century. The study points out the dramatic effect this would have on Alpine villages, where up to 90 per cent of the economy depends on winter tourism.

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Ski resorts have responded to a growing need to limit the effect of unpredictable weather by investing in state of the art snowmaking that can create snow in warmer temperatures. They also prepare and move around the snow they have, to make sure it’s still possible to have ski on good-quality pistes even if it hasn’t snowed recently. The high, snow-sure resort of Tignes in France has gone one step further, planning an indoor slope that will function all year round.

The study’s best-case scenario predicts what will happen if emissions continue to be controlled, and are halved by 2050. This would keep global warming below 2ºC and loss of snow cover down to 30 per cent or less at the end of the century. “The Alpine snow cover will recede anyway, but our future emissions control by how much,” said lead researcher Christoph Marty of the SLF. “The fact that we lose 30 per cent of the Alpine snow cover with the 2°C global warming scenario is sad, but at the same time encouraging compared to the 70 per cent loss when we go on with business as usual.”

But what can skiers and snowboarders expect in the shorter term? In both the best and worse case scenarios in the study, loss of snow-cover is about 35 per cent by 2035 – it’s only later that the differences made by controlling emissions kick in.

However, just because the Alps has suffered three poor starts to the season in a row, it doesn’t mean the same will happen next season. Perhaps nowhere knows this better than California, whose ski resorts suffered dramatically low-snow seasons in 2013/14 and 2014/15, but have had a historically snowy season in 2016/17, and plan to stay open until July 4 or later this year. In January 2017 the resort of Squaw Valley overturned a 45-year-old record, with nearly 4.5 metres of snow falling. Mammoth Mountain had a similarly spectacular month – the snowfall of 6.46 metres in January set a record for the most snow the resort has ever received in one month.

With a foot of new snow in the last 24 hours, January is officially the snowiest month in HISTORY at Mammoth (212" at Main Lodge and counting). Heavy snowfall and increasing winds are expected today - wind/weather holds will be in effect and operations will be limited. Be safe and have fun. 📸 Jayson Smith #mmsp #mammothstories A photo posted by Mammoth Mountain (@mammothmountain) on Jan 22, 2017 at 6:31am PST

Such huge dumps of snow bring their own problems however. Paul Wisely of myweather2.co.uk said at the time: ”The snowfall in Mammoth is extreme and can be added to the increasingly long list of other freak and usually highly dangerous weather events that are being recorded around the world.” In California it has sometimes been difficult for skiers to reach the slopes, and resorts have had to close thanks to extreme weather conditions. In Europe, while big snowfalls after the drought created memorable days on the slopes, they also brought more reports of avalanches, emphasising the need for skiers and snowboarders to pay attention to safety, particularly when going off piste.