Explore · System

Mountain system

The climate, the water near the resorts, every resort on the map, how riders get there, and the money, jobs and gear that follow, run year by year to 2100. 146 resorts, each simulated from its own peak and vertical. 41 places without a snow model, the cable parks, sit this one out.

Carbon budget
Run
Scenario
Levers
Resorts

146 resorts, every one simulated

Reliable · 100+ daysMarginal · 60–99At risk · under 60
Overview

2025 to 2100

Faint line: where the current settings lead. Solid line: the run so far.

Ledger

Baseline, this year, and where it leads

The same measures every year, against 2025. Misses stay in the table. Every figure is modelled, not measured, and nothing is netted off for offsets.

ModelledSubject to changeNo offsets
Method
  • Emissions start at 42 Gt CO₂ a year (Global Carbon Budget 2024) and fall in a straight line to the net-zero year. CO₂ starts at 427 ppm (NOAA, 2025). 47% of emissions stay in the air, and 7.82 Gt is 1 ppm.
  • Remaining budgets from 1 January 2025: 130 Gt for 1.5°C and about 1,050 Gt for 2°C, both at a 50% chance (Forster et al. 2025, Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024). Warming starts at 1.36°C and follows the budgets.
  • Each resort's mid-altitude is its peak minus half its vertical, from app/content/map/resorts.ts through the content facade. The snow-reliability line rises 150 m per °C from a regional base (OECD 2007 for the Alps: 1,200 m at about 0.9°C). Natural days = 60 + 0.25 × margin, capped at 180. Snowmaking adds up to 30 days while reservoirs are above 30.
  • Travel: fly 206, solo car 150, shared car 50, rail 37 kg CO₂e per return trip (Anthesis 2020 via Ecoski, London–Tignes). Lift operations: 4 kg per rider-day (La Rosière).
  • Getting there is most of a resort's footprint: 52% in the ADEME study of three French resorts (2022), about 60% in POW Europe's 2020 Strategic Plan. Rail is 0.5% of transport CO₂ (POW, p. 4).
  • Rail-arrival perks follow the POW Pass idea: partner resorts reward riders who arrive by public transport. Each step of resorts adds up to 10 points of rail, taken from solo driving first. That effect is an assumption.
  • Gear not kept in use is discarded. Under 1% is recycled, after Patagonia's 2025 report: less than 1% of what it has made comes back for recycling (p. 96). Repair and sharing come first.
  • No offsets. The model never subtracts purchased credits, and the ledger reports emissions as they are.
  • Rider-days, spending (€95 a day), jobs (2.4 per 1,000 rider-days), water, gear and leakage are assumptions to test.
  • A teaching and strategy model, not a climate forecast. Companion to the Machinations prompt.