As Italy prepares for the 2026 Winter Olympics, a crucial part of the prep is the manufacturing of artificial snow; the Olympics organizing committee plans to make 2.4 million cubic meters of the stuff.
The practice has become more and more common as climate change leads to warmer temperatures and less reliable snow packs. But as climate change worsens, artificial snow won’t even be enough to help certain countries host the Winter Games.
By mid-century, the number of countries that could potentially host the Winter Olympic Games could be cut nearly in half, according to a recent study from the University of Waterloo.
Currently, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says there are 93 potential host locations that have the winter sports infrastructure needed to host the games. That includes arenas for events like hockey and ice skating and areas for snow sports outside of a big city.
If countries continue with their current climate policies, though, that number drops to 52 locations that would remain “climate-reliable” for the Winter Olympics by 2050, according to the study, which was published in the journal Current Issues in Tourism.
For the Paralympics, which occur in March after the Olympics in February, the situation is even more dire: By 2050, there are only 22 potential host locations.
The Olympics need snowmaking
Those remaining locations would still require artificial snowmaking, a process that needs cold and dry air. In some places, it’s becoming too warm to even make snow or to maintain that snowpack.
“Those are the [locations] that drop off our list of climate-reliable,” says Daniel Scott, the study’s lead author and a professor in the Faculty of Environment at Waterloo.
This happened during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics: An El Nino brought record high temperatures along with rain to the area before the games, which meant officials couldn’t make snow. Instead, they had to bring in snow via trucks and helicopters from higher elevations.
If the snow, real or artificial, melts and turns into slush, that becomes a safety issue for athletes—and generally hinders their athletic performance.
Without snowmaking, the study found, the number of potential hosts for the Winter Olympics plummets to just four by the 2050s.
Those are Niseko, Japan; Terskol, Russia; and Val d’Isère and Courchevel in France.
Is snowmaking sustainable?
“To not use snowmaking makes about as much sense as moving hockey and figure skating back outside, the way it was in the 1930s,” Scott says.
The question, then, is how to make snowmaking as sustainable as possible, just like how officials work to make their refrigerated arenas as sustainable as possible.
Snowmaking can require a lot of both energy and water—but just how environmentally harmful it is depends on the specific location.
The power grid in France, for example, is nearly completely free of fossil fuels, so a higher electricity demand for snowmaking there wouldn’t directly lead to more emissions.
In Utah, though, under 20% of electricity comes from renewable energy. That means making snow in Salt Lake City would come with a carbon footprint.
Making the Winter Olympics earlier
Along with looking at climate-reliable locations, the Waterloo study explored some adaptation strategies to make the Winter Games more resilient against rising temperatures.
Combining the Olympics and Paralympics so both occur in February, when colder temperatures are more likely, would be too difficult because of the size and complexity.
But the researchers found that if the games each shifted to be a few weeks earlier, the number of climate-reliable host locations for the Paralympics increases to 38. That would mean the Paralympics begin in the last week of February.
Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Italian Alps town that will host certain events for the upcoming 2026 Olympics, has already seen the effects of climate change. February temperatures there are 6.4 degrees F warmer than in 1956, the first year Cortina hosted the Winter Games.
The IOC plans locations years in advance, meaning it relies on this kind of modeling data to make hosting decisions. The committee is already planning who will host the 2038 games, and after that are the 2040 Olympics, already close to that mid-century mark that eliminates a bunch of possible locales.
It’s only going to become increasingly important for the IOC to pay attention to climate science. The past three years have been the hottest on record, and 2024 was the first year to surpass 1.5 degrees of human-caused warming.
“If that kind of acceleration were to continue, it would be more and more important for [the IOC] to take note of,” Scott says.