Global Warming Poses Threat to Ski Resorts in the Alps

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/world/europe/16austria.html

KITZBÜHEL, Austria, Dec. 15 — How balmy has it been in the Alps these last few months? At the bottom of the Hahnenkamm, the famously treacherous downhill course in this Austrian ski resort, the slope peters out into a grassy field. And it’s just 10 days before Christmas.

Temperatures in the Alps began heating up around 1980, Mr. Böhm said, after an uncommonly cool period that started in 1950. This coincided with the major development of the European ski industry.