Posted on March, 25 2007

My name is Adrian Brunner. I am 30 years old and live in Switzerland. I was born and raised in Birchwil near Zurich. I went to school in Winterthur and love spending my spare time in nature since I was a child. Snowboarding and bicycling are my passions.

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When I was ten years old, I became an avid mountain biker. At the age of 21, after 12 years of intense training in the Elite Amateur category, I left the mountain bike circuit. I spent half a year on the American West Coast, where I learned to surf.

After returning to Switzerland, I finished a three-year commercial training programme and first worked in a metal company. But spending 11 or 12 hours a day in an office was not my idea of fun.

Move to the mountains

I decided to move to the mountains, more precisely to ski-resort town of Andermatt, where I work three or four days a week and spend the rest of my time doing outdoor activities. Andermatt is located in the heart of the Swiss Alps and lives mainly on tourism, one of Switzerland’s most important economic sectors.

I currently work in a snowboard and mountain bike shop, which I am in the process of taking over. My company sells snowboard and biking products along with the corresponding clothing and offers classes in both sports for visitors.

Like many other mountain resorts in Switzerland, Andermatt has been affected by climate change. I have experienced it first hand — winters begin later, and are milder and dryer, while early snow in the fall is often missing and rockslides are more frequent. The European Alps are among the regions that warm faster than world average — about 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial temperatures. This warming leads to less snow that stays for shorter periods of time in lower altitudes. The winter and spring seasons are expected to become wetter. Whether this additional precipitation leads to snow coverage or not will heavily depend on actual weather patterns and change from year to year. Winters with good snow coverage will still occur but become less frequent.

Christmas without snow

My shop generates about 75 per cent of revenue during the winter season, one-third alone over Christmas and New Year’s in December and January. This period is crucial for my business. However, today winter is full of surprises, everything is messed up.

In the past, winter used to start in October or November. Today the low-pressure systems over the Atlantic Ocean are missing, so there is no snowfall. My experience is that heavy snowfall doesn’t arrive until March, April or even May. For example, in November 2006 I was able to bike in shorts at an altitude of 2,000 metres.

When the hills remain green around Christmas time visitors don’t come to Andermatt for their holidays. Because of that I lose most of my annual turnover. Besides, a green Christmas also means that the season is essentially over. After that, visitors don’t arrive anymore because in their minds there won’t be any snow later in the season if there isn’t any for the holidays. Oddly enough, this regular pattern is locked in people’s minds. In a winter such as this year’s this mindset has led to a 50 per cent revenue loss for my hardware business (bindings, snowboards). On the clothing side it looks a little better. There I expect a drop of between 20 and 30 per cent.

Fighting climate change with concrete and synthetic foil

For tourism destinations such as Andermatt the consequences of global warming involve additional expenses:

• Crevasses are no longer covered with snow, making the preparation of glacier runs increasingly more difficult.
• Infrastructures to protect transportation routes, settlement areas and tourism facilities must be expanded, which requires additional funds.
• Ski-lift companies fortify their foundations with concrete because melting permafrost renders their summit stations unstable.
• Due to a rockslide, the road to Andermatt was closed for four weeks in the summer of 2006, which lead to a massive decline in visitor numbers.
• Since summer 2005, Andermatt has covered the top part of its glacier with synthetic foil to prevent the access ramp to the summit station from melting too quickly. An expensive form of protection indeed. The foil does help in places, but it cannot save the glacier from dying.

Betting on summer

I am convinced that I won’t be able to continue operating my winter business until I retire – my shop won’t be able to cope economically with the predicted climate change. And over the medium term I probably won’t be able to keep my ten employees during the winter season. To survive, I will have to expand my operation’s summer offerings. But to do that, I will have to come up with new ideas first.

I would also like to have a family some day. But the climate change makes me feel unsure and concerns me. What kind of planet will my children and their children have to live on?