Global warming hits skiing

Up to half of Switzerland's ski resorts are facing ruin because of global warming, and low altitude resorts in Austria, Germany and Italy expect to have no snow within a decade.

"We don't expect to have snow in low lying resorts such as Klosters for more than the next 10 years," Werner Schmultz, a professor at the World Radiation Centre, based in Davos, Switzerland, said last month.

"Our research suggests that since about 1980 the temperature increase from solar activity was steeper than ever. We estimate that 50 per cent of this is as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

"We can already measure climate change, and the rate of change will increase in the future. Politicians have a chance to realise this, and if they don't want to, it is deliberate ignorance."