Why do the Winter Olympics use artificial snow?

Recently, some people on the Internet said that artificial snow is a waste of water resources and will affect the ecology and domestic water use. Some even questioned why the Winter Olympics cannot use natural snow? Why must artificial snow be used?

While feeling everyone's attention to ice and snow sports and the Winter Olympics, as a scientific researcher who deals full-time with "snow", let's talk today about why the modern Winter Olympics must use artificial snow.

Chinese athlete Song Qiwu in the ski jumping competition (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Mou Yu)

Part 1

The Winter Olympics requires a large amount of snow, but the natural snow supply is difficult to meet

The International Ski Federation document "Design Requirements for Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding Venues for the 2022 Winter Olympics" points out that the ski obstacle pursuit track requires 1.07×10^5 cubic meters of snow; even the smaller ski jumping track must maintain at least 1.1×10^4 cubic meters of snow.

Obviously, abundant snow is the most basic condition for the Winter Olympics, but in the past when the Games relied on natural snow, there were cases where the weather was not favorable and the Winter Olympics could not be held smoothly. For example, in the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, many events were cancelled due to the lack of snow in the host city. Even the 50km cross-country skiing race was delayed by more than an hour compared to the previous champion due to the lack of snow.

With the development of technology, artificial snowmaking has gradually changed the situation where the Winter Olympics had to rely on the weather, solved the embarrassment of no or little snow in the host city, and made competitive competitions safer and more reliable.

The National Alpine Skiing Center's snow slopes are being made on November 16, 2021 (drone photo). (Photo credit: Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Chenlin)

Since the first use of artificial snow at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics in the United States, the Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang have all made extensive use of artificial snow.

Part 2

Artificial snow makes Olympic competitions more fair

With the fairness, justice and standardization of Olympic events, higher requirements are placed on the amount and quality of snow in competitive venues. In order to ensure quality, artificial snow has gradually played the role of "key man" in the Winter Olympics.

First, the snow at artificial ski resorts has a single and stable property. For the general public, natural ski resorts have a beautiful environment and soft snow, which is not only suitable for skiing and playing, but also very suitable for sightseeing. However, for the Olympics, the most basic requirement is that athletes compete under fair and just conditions.

Therefore, in order to ensure the fairness of the event, the snow conditions at the ski resort must be uniform and stable, ensuring that athletes from different parts of the world can enjoy stable and fair track conditions regardless of their starting order and competition time.

Before the competition, the snow must be repeatedly compacted and leveled with a snow groomer to slow down the development and deterioration of snow and keep the properties of snow stable. In the article "From formation to accumulation, what are the differences between artificial snow and natural snow?", we have mentioned that the physical properties of natural snow are changeable, which affects the performance of athletes and the comfort of skiing, while artificial snow has a single snow layer and stable properties. Therefore, after being compacted, leveled and injected with water, it is easier to become a snow track with consistent physical properties.

Compacted and flat ski competition field (Image source: self-made by the author)

Secondly, in different climatic regions of the world, there are significant differences in the density of snow, water content and the development of snow crystals in ski resorts, which affects the fair competition of athletes from different regions of the world.

For example, the Tianshan and Altai Mountains in Xinjiang, my country, have low temperatures, low snow density, low water content, high porosity, and high temperature gradients, which are typical continental snow climates. Under these snow climate conditions, snow accumulation develops and metamorphoses significantly, and relatively large snow particles (such as deep frost) account for a high proportion of snow fields.

In areas with marine snow climates such as Hokkaido, Japan, and the east coast of Canada, the temperature is relatively high, the snow density is high, the water content is high, the porosity is low, and the temperature gradient is low. Large snow crystals such as deep frost develop and metamorphose slowly. In addition, the snow cover characteristics of the Alps, which belong to the transitional snow climate, are between the continental and marine snow climates, which is also unique.

If athletes who often train in continental snow climate zones with low snow moisture content and large snow crystals are placed in marine snow climate zones with high snow moisture content and small snow crystals for skiing competitions, it will definitely affect the performance of the athletes and the fairness of the competition. Artificial snow is completely controlled by artificial conditions and is the same everywhere. It can completely overcome the differences in ski resort characteristics caused by regional climate environments, which affects the fairness of sports.

Part 3

The requirements for snow used in the Winter Olympics are high.

Snow in ski resorts must be resistant to high pressure and high impact

The Olympic slogan is "Faster, Higher, Stronger". Ski jumping, snowboard cross skiing and other sports are all carried out in high-speed impact and high-speed pursuit. Therefore, the Winter Olympics requires that the snow on the snow track has the performance of resisting high impact and high pressure.

High-speed turn impact in snowboarding (Image source: author's own)

Natural snow cannot meet the snow requirements for ski jumping, cross-country skiing and other events due to its high porosity, low density and low strength. However, even if the snow is compacted with a snow groomer, it cannot fully meet the ideal skiing competition standards. This is because the bottom of the natural snow is deteriorating due to temperature gradients, and it is easy to form a condensed deep frost with high porosity but strong compressive resistance. This will cause stepping holes and impact pits in the ski resort during high-impact sports such as ski jumping, affecting the competition.

Condensed deep cream (Image source: self-made by the author)

The International Ski Federation requires that the surface of alpine skiing trails must be kept in a crystal state similar to that of ice. Such trails are hard and can be relatively flat when athletes are hitting and turning at high speeds. Moreover, no matter which athlete is the first to appear, the state of the trail and the shape of the snow can remain stable. Artificial snow fields with a single type of snow crystals and stable properties can meet the above requirements very well.

It can be seen from this that in terms of the objective requirements for the Winter Olympics ski resorts, whether in terms of snow volume control, stable snow accumulation properties or strong resistance to pressure and impact, artificial snow is very consistent with the Winter Olympics' requirements for snow accumulation in ski resorts, and is an objective requirement for major international events to ensure the quality of snow.

Artificial snow will play an irreplaceable role in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and become one of the guarantees of fairness and justice.

Let us look forward to the athletes’ agile postures and excellent results on the ski field during the Winter Olympics!

References:

1. Mock CJ, Birkeland K W. Snow avalanche climatology of the western United States mountain ranges[J]. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2000, 81(10): 2367-2392.

2. Jiansheng H, Richard MJE, Yang Liu, et al. Characteristics and hazards of different snow avalanche types in a continental snow climate region in the Central Tianshan Mountains[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2021, 13(4): 317-331.

3. Shandro B, Haegeli P. Characterizing the nature and variability of avalanche hazard in western Canada[J]. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 2018, 18(4): 1141-1158.

4. Abe O, Xu J, Liu J, et al. Shear strength of natural and artificial depth hoar layers[J]. ISSW 2006 proceedings, Marmot, CO, 2006: 7-14.

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Produced by: Hao Jiansheng

Producer: Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

(The images with source indicated in this article have been authorized)

The article only represents the author's views and does not represent the position of China Science Expo

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