Vonn and Shiffrin of Team USA among skiers express concerns about retreating glaciers

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Team USA skiers Lindsey Vonn And Mikaela Shiffrintogether with that of Italy Federica Brignoneare among the many skiers who have expressed concerns about this during these Olympics speeding up melting of the world’s glaciers.

And Olympic host city Cortina is an appropriate place for them to talk about climate change: Glaciers once visible from the city have shrunk dramatically. Many have been reduced to small glaciers or remnant ice patches at high altitudes among the jagged peaks of the Dolomites. Any Olympian or spectator who wants to see a large glacier must take a long drive over winding mountain roads to the Marmolada. It also melts quickly.

The world’s best skiers train on glaciers for the high quality of snow there, and a warming world is putting the future of their sport at risk. Vonn started skiing on glaciers in Austria when she was just 9 years old.

“Most of the glaciers I’ve skied are pretty much gone,” Vonn, 41, said Feb. 3 in response to a question from The Associated Press at a pre-race news conference in Cortina. she crashed on the Olympic downhill course. “So that is very real and very clear to us.”

As snow sports athletes, Shiffrin said, they get “a real front-row view” of the monumental changes underway atop some of the highest and coldest peaks in the world.

“It’s something that’s very close to our hearts because it’s the heart and soul of what we do,” Shiffrin told AP after the race on Sunday. “I would really like to believe and hope that with strong voices and some sort of broader policy changes within companies and governments, there is hope for a future for our sport. But I think at the moment it’s a bit of a… it’s a question.”

Shiffrin on Wednesday became the first American skier to win three Alpine gold medals. in an emotional slalom victory.

Italian glaciologist Antonella Senese said Italy has lost more than 200 square kilometers of glacier area since the late 1950s.

“We observe a continuous and uninterrupted decline in glacier area and volume. Over the last one to 20 years, this decline has clearly accelerated,” Senese, associate professor of physical geography at the University of Milan’s department of environmental sciences and policy, said in an interview.

Among the peaks surrounding Cortina d’Ampezzo are glaciers on the slopes of the Cristallo and Sorapiss mountains. The 2015 New Italian glacier inventory found that these glaciers have shrunk by about a third since the 1959-1962 inventory.

Shortly afterwards winning a second gold On Sunday, during the Winter Olympics at home, Brignone told AP that skiing now is “completely different” than when she was younger. Brignone lives in the Aosta Valley, about six hours away.

As she watches glaciers retreat to higher altitudes, Brignone says she isn’t thinking about the future of skiing; she worries about the future of the planet.

“We have a lot of glaciers there, but they are rising and rising, more and more every year,” she told AP.

Yet many people who don’t visit the mountains are unaware of what is at stake, so the University of Innsbruck created the Goodbye glacier project. The loss of glaciers has far-reaching consequences: it threatens water sources, increases dangers in the mountains and contributes to sea level rise.

The project shows how different levels of warming are changing the amount of ice remaining on selected glaciers around the world. To qualify, glaciers must have an estimated volume of at least 0.01 cubic kilometers in 2020. The Cristallo and Sorapiss glaciers no longer meet that threshold, says Patrick Schmitt, a doctoral student at the University of Innsbruck.

About 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Cortina lies the Marmolada Glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Italy and the largest in the Dolomites. A portion of the glacier the size of an apartment building that was detached in July 2022 An avalanche of debris occurred, killing eleven hikers. The mountain is popular for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter.

The University of Padua said this in 2023 the glacier had halved in 25 years.

According to the Goodbye Glaciers Project, this is expected to largely disappear by 2034 as the world warms by 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 Fahrenheit). But if warming is limited to 1.5 C (2.7 F – the international goal – the glacier’s lifespan could be extended by another six years, and about 100 glaciers in the Alps could be saved, Schmitt said.

“Cutting greenhouse gas emissions now will reduce future ice loss and mitigate the impact on people and nature,” Schmitt wrote in an email. “The choices we make this decade will determine how much ice remains in the Dolomites, in the Alps and around the world.”

More than 7 trillion tons of ice (6.5 trillion metric tons) have been lost worldwide since 2000. according to a study last year. And the future impact of climate change on Olympic sport is enormous; the list of places that could host the Winter Games are expected to shrink significantly in the coming years.

In Cortina, Noa Szollos, who fights for Israel, said in an interview that the condition of nearby glaciers says something about the condition of glaciers around the world.

“I hope we can do something about it,” she said, “but it’s a difficult time.”

Silja Koskinen from Finland said in an interview that she cannot train on some of the glaciers she is used to because of crevasses, rocks and rushing water. Team USA skier AJ Hurt talked about starting the season in October on glaciers in Sölden, Austria.

“Every year I feel like we come here and there’s a little less snow. And every time we think, are we really starting in October? There’s no snow here,” Hurt told the AP. “It’s really sad and hard to ignore in this sport, especially when we deal with it so much and it’s so obvious.”

Norwegian skier Nikolai Schirmer is leading an effort to stop fossil fuel companies from sponsoring winter sports. Burning coal, oil and gas is the message largest contributor to global climate change by far.

In Bormio, Italy, Team USA skier River Radamus said athletes — as stewards of outdoor winter sports — should be at the forefront of trying to best defend the environment.

“It’s always in our minds that we’re on a dangerous trend unless we do something right,” Radamus said.

AP sports writer Pat Graham contributed from Bormio, Italy.

AP Winter Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

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