Take it from the Olympics, slushy winter sports may be the new normal

Science News · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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The 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, was a slushy affair. And the Paralympics, which start March 6, may be more of the same. From ice rinks to ski slopes, conditions were warmer and wetter than expected. Some Olympians — including figure skaters, speedskaters and cross-country skiers — cited the slush as contributing to an unusual rash of falls, crashes and disappointing performances. But warm, wet conditions are something that elite winter athletes will have to get used to. Climate change is driving temperatures higher, leading to less snowfall and shorter periods of safe ice on frozen bodies of water. As competing on artificial snow or in indoor ice arenas becomes more common, what athletes learn could offer the rest of us tips for enjoying these environments safely. Snow-fakes Sarah Cookler remembers the first time she saw a racecourse covered with just artificial snow. “It was in the Pyrenees Mountains in France,” she recalls. “The snow run had grass on either side.” Cookler was coaching Team USA at the International Ski Mountaineering Federation’s World Youth Cup. Ski mountaineering — also known as “skimo” — is a sprint up and down a snow-covered mountain. It was March 2023, almost the end of ski season, and the snow run was beat up and compacted. It was also a warm day during an unseasonably hot month worldwide. “Gosh, it was probably around 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit,” Cookler recalls. “The conditions were wet.” Her team had never competed on a warm, slick course. In warm or dry winters, many ski competitions take place on artificial snow, such as here at Val-Louron, a ski resort in the French Pyrenees, in March 2023. It was an unusually warm month worldwide.S. Cookler The team warmed up by stretching and running on the dry, yellow grass bordering the starting line. Then they carried their skis over to the snow to get ready for the starting whistle. This team trains in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, where winters bring high snowpack and months of powder snow. “Our athletes are used to skiing cold, deep, dry snow,” Cookler says. Artificial snow differs from the natural stuff, and Cookler’s team had skied on less-slick artificial snow before. Cookler had coached the athletes on techniques for artificial snow. So as they kicked off, they had some sense of what was ahead. The 2026 Winter Olympics also relied heavily on human-made snow. And the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing used the stuff exclusively. Watch reruns online and you probably won’t notice it wasn’t the real thing, but those who skied on it have said they could definitely tell. The color is almost beige, which the eye can easily pick out, says snow hydrologist Noah Molotch of the University of Colorado Boulder. “It’s not yellow snow, but it does have a slightly darker appearance.” Molotch studies mountain snowpack and spends a lot of time snowboarding. The best way to understand how to ski safely in artificial snow, he says, is to know its properties. Under powerful microscopes, artificial snow looks nothing like real flakes. Its beady shape comes from the way it’s produced. Machines start making these frozen bits when the air temperature is at or below –2.5° Celsius (27.5° Fahrenheit). High-pressure hoses use compressed air to spray water upward, creating fine mist. The tiny droplets quickly freeze into microbeads that powerful blowers propel out onto the slopes. While the beads are mixtures of ice and air, as snow is, they don’t hold as much air as natural snowflakes, Molotch says. Unlike artificial snow, natural snow comes in many shapes — from simple needles, columns and plates to complex, stellar dendrites. Different combinations of air temperature and humidity form flakes with different shapes and sizes. If the air is cold and dry, ice crystals tend to stay small and compact. In humid air, ice crystals develop rapidly and form intricate, fernlike branches that clump into flakes. A huge dump of this kind of snow results in powder, the snow many skiers love. Faster times Powder’s fluffiness makes it a softer surface on which to fall. But higher temperatures can melt the surface, forming a stiff crust over the fluffy layered snow below. When more snow falls on top of these layers, it creates an irregular racecourse surface, Molotch says. Alpine skiers race on February 20 at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics games. All outdoor snow events there, including this one, were held on artificial snow. Competitors had to adjust for how it behaves somewhat differently from natural snow. Alex Pantling/Staff/Getty Images AsiaPac Artificial snow is less likely to get rutted by skis. Its tiny beads bond together efficiently to produce a firm surface that lasts longer than natural snow. “It tends to resist the force of a ski driving the weight of an Olympic athlete on one edge,” Molotch says. That allows its surface to remain smoother and skis to race across it faster and more efficiently. Competitive athletes typically inspect racecourses the day before they compete so they can match their equipment to the conditions. For Cookler and her team, this meant tuning skis and choosing the right wax and skins. This is even more important when racing on artificial snow because it “rips the wax off a lot faster and is abrasive on the skis,” Cookler says. Athletes use a file to flatten a ski’s base and sharpen dull edges to improve control and grip. And to help skis glide efficiently, they coat the bases with wax. Skiers try to match the right wax to conditions on the slope — such as whether it’s wet or dry, powdery or icy. Wet snow creates a suctionlike effect on skis. So for their Pyrenees trek, Cookler’s team chose a hydrophobic wax. For the uphill segments of the race, the athletes attached grippy, hydrophobic climbing skins to their ski bases to keep from sliding backward. Then they gauged what to wear for the race. “Artificial snow is usually colder than natural snow,” Cookler says. And its temperature “tends to change less because it’s compacted.” So for that warm spring day, her team wore its usual winter race suits. On race day, they trusted their technique and training. “Going downhill when snow is soft and slushy is going to be different than when it’s firm and icy,” Cookler says. In slushy, artificial snow, Cookler advises softer turns that don’t dig deep into the snow. Skiers can then keep their skis flat, instead of banking, to maintain their speed. Harder falls But what athletes gain in speed in artificial snow, they pay for in harder falls, Cookler says. The reason: “There is no give in that snow.” Teams need to train on this type of surface as much as possible in the lead-up to races. A warming climate has led to less predictable snowfalls, so today artificial snow is prominent in all skiing events. This microscope image shows the beadlike structure of machine-made artificial snow, which is sprayed by cannons at ski resorts and looks nothing like the intricate branching shapes of natural snowflakes. © KENNETH LIBBRECHT/Flickr It’s no surprise that many ski resorts also use snow machines. From 2014 to 2023, the Northern Hemisphere lost an average of seven winter days per year that should have been below freezing, an analysis from Climate Central found. And Europe lost more freezing winter days compared with other regions — an average of two weeks per year. Recreational skiers don’t always have to ski on the artificial white stuff. Some high-altitude resorts are in conditions cold enough that they never need to make snow, though they still need to shorten their seasons. Other resorts use a mix of artificial and natural snow. They start making snow in the fall to build up a base reserve in case snow comes late in the winter — or not at all. Molotch advises skiers and snowboarders to ask resorts where their artificial snow runs are. If you don’t spot a change in snow type, the new conditions could result in a crash. “I have a lifetime of snowboarding. And at one point I had devoted my life to it,” Molotch says. Impact on hard snow surfaces has contributed to cartilage damage on some of his joints. For Molotch, the chance of a fall on artificial snow isn’t worth it. “I ski away from it,” he says. Ice rink advantage Competitive ice athletes — figure skaters, hockey players, speed skaters and curlers — aren’t experiencing as many changes as snow athletes are because their sports mostly take place in indoor ice arenas. However, ice quality can still vary greatly. Top athletes know how to read whether this is likely to slow them down or up their game. “When you first step out there, you can tell if the ice is going to be hard or soft,” says Kelsey Koelzer, the head coach for women’s ice hockey at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pa. She feels soft ice makes her exert more effort to move. The cold, hard ice that’s perfect for hockey allows players to skate faster and with less effort. “It impacts how quickly the game can be played, how quickly the puck is moving out on the ice and how fast goalies can move from side to side.” Modern ice rinks and arenas produce different ice for different sports. Figure skaters need softer, warmer ice, which grips their skate blades better. Curlers prefer pebbled ice that reduces surface friction and allows players to better control the trajectory and speed of the curling stone. And speed skaters and hockey players? They ask for a harder, colder surface — durable ice that’s built for speed. Technicians alter the ice surface by controlling an arena’s ice temperature, humidity, air temperature and ice thickness. The surface is built up layer by layer by spraying a millimeter (four hundredths of an inch) of purified water with each pass. Below the rink, a maze of pipes filled with coolant freezes each layer and keeps the rink frozen. But indoor ice quality can still differ, even in regional and national games where arenas are supposed to follow standards. “There is no consensus on what is optimal ice,” says Stefania Impelli