ARTIFICIAL SNOW IN WINTER OLYMPICS

TOPIC: Environment

Context- Artificial snow needs to be pumped to pull off the Olympics in Beijing.

Concept-

How artificial snow is made?

The making of artificial snow is quite similar to Mother Nature’s process. However, in the man-made version, snow guns are heavily relied upon.
The snow gun’s core element is a large propeller, which is supplied with water and electricity and generates a strong flow of air.
The water is sprayed through nozzles in front of the propeller and transported from the compressed air stream to the cold, dry winter air.
Depending on the weather conditions, the size of the water droplets can be adjusted to produce the best possible artificial snow.
Another way to create artificial snow is through a snow lance. These devices, which look like thin lantern poles, are permanently installed at the edge of the piste. They blow out atomised water together with compressed air, creating fine snow dust that trickles onto the slope.

Environmental concerns

The issues have raised concerns over the environmental sustainability of this process, as man-made snow requires thousands of litres of water and kilowatts of energy.
Many are also concerned that the noise pollution from the artificial snow machines will disturb wildlife at the reserve.

Athletes’ concerned

The use of artificial snow is also raising worries among the athletes, with some saying that fake snow creates an icier, harder skiing surface which is more treacherous for take-offs and landings.

Artificial snow at Olympics Games

This is not the first time that artificial snow is being used at the Olympics.
It was first used at the 1980 Winter Games held in Lake Placid, New York, USA to subsidise low natural snow levels.
In 2014, around 80 per cent of snow at the Sochi Games was man-made and this rose to 90 per cent at the PyeongChang Games in 2018.