--- title: The Olympics Need Artificial Snow. Here's the Climate Impact description: Organizers of the 2026 Winter Olympics have already produced over 56 million cubic feet of machine-made snow. canonical: https://time.com/7373179/winter-olympics-2026-artificial-snow-climate-impact/ author: Simmone Shah article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-02-09T19:45:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:54:39.586Z article:section: Climate og:title: The Olympics Need Artificial Snow. Here's the Climate Impact og:description: Organizers of the 2026 Winter Olympics have already produced over 56 million cubic feet of machine-made snow. og:url: https://time.com/7373179/winter-olympics-2026-artificial-snow-climate-impact/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt057125fbca4e405b/6998ce5d93610c0ad6c307a1/winter-olympics-milano-cortina-2026-artificial-snow.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Livigno Ahead Of The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Olympics Need Artificial Snow. Here's the Climate Impact twitter:description: Organizers of the 2026 Winter Olympics have already produced over 56 million cubic feet of machine-made snow. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt057125fbca4e405b/6998ce5d93610c0ad6c307a1/winter-olympics-milano-cortina-2026-artificial-snow.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Winter Olympics Need Artificial Snow, But It Comes With a Climate Impact > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Simmone Shah](https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/)  ## Simmone Shah Reporter Feb 9, 2026 7:45 PM UTC  Construction of ski slopes and ski jumps with snow cannons ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Construction of ski slopes and ski jumps with snow cannons ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.Mattia Ozbot—Getty Images  by [Simmone Shah](https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/)  ## Simmone Shah Reporter Feb 9, 2026 7:45 PM UTC Just before the Winter Olympics kicked off, Cortina d'Ampezzo, the Dolomite town that will play host to a number of the Games’ alpine events, received a healthy dusting of fresh snow, easing [earlier concerns](https://www.reuters.com/sports/milano-cortina-winter-games-back-track-concerns-over-snow-ease-fis-chief-2026-01-06/) about snow reliability after a warm start to the winter. But organizers have already produced over [56 million cubic feet](https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2026-02-06/climate-change-is-threatening-winter-olympics-games) of fake snow to create the conditions athletes expect. It’s nothing new. Machine-made snow has been used by ski resorts for decades to combat unreliable weather conditions—for recreation and competitions alike. Around [60%](https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/winter/travel-guide/saying-no-to-fake-snow) of the world's ski resorts now rely on snowmaking machines alongside natural snowfall, and in 2022, the Beijing Winter Olympics[ relied on](https://www.olympics.com/ioc/news/snow-climate-change-and-the-olympic-winter-games) almost 100% artificial snow. As climate change makes winters warmer, the practice could become more widespread—but it often comes with a climate cost. Just like natural snow, artificial snow is a mixture of snow and ice, but the process of creating it differs greatly from the snowflakes that form in the atmosphere. “Machine-made snow involves the freezing of liquid water into rounded beads of ice that, when collected together on the ground, take on an appearance of natural snow,” says Noah Molotch, snow hydrology professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Machines spray out a mixture of compressed air and water from a machine, a process that uses a lot of energy and water. A 2023 [study](https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/experts-uncover-the-water-and-emissions-footprint-of-snowmaking-can-we-rely-on-it-in-an-era-of-climate-change/) found that, in Canada, producing 1.4 billion cubic feet of snow during an average winter requires an estimated 478,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity per year, resulting in 130,095 metric tons of associated carbon emissions—equivalent to the annual energy consumption of nearly 17,000 Canadian households—and an estimated 1.5 billion cubic feet of water—roughly 17,320 Olympic sized swimming pools. It is estimated that the Games will need 84.8 million cubic feet of water—the equivalent of 380 Olympic swimming pools—for snowmaking alone, according to [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2026/02/05/nx-s1-5687277/winter-olympics-italy-environmental-impact). Where that water is sourced from is important, says Daniel Scott, professor of geography and environmental management at the University of Waterloo. “In many places in North America, and Cortina has them as well, we have purpose-built reservoirs in the mountain, where you capture spring runoff when there's plentiful water, put it up on the hill as snow, and 80-90% of that melts back down into the same watershed the next year.” The same can be said for energy. “If you're using \[electricity\] from a grid that has a lot of fossil fuels in it, you're contributing back to climate change, which is the very reason you have to use snow making in the first place, so the source of electricity really matters,” says Scott. The easy solution to the practice’s energy drain, Scott says, is making sure that electricity is coming from renewable sources—a switch that snow towns everywhere from Quebec to the French Alps have already made. The International Olympic Committee has said that “[most](https://www.olympics.com/ioc/milano-cortina-2026-sustainability-impact-legacy)” of the energy used for snowmaking this year will be renewably sourced. Scott notes that, in some cases, the practice can change the ecological balance of a region, causing, for example, delayed blooms, though the impact is often minor. “When you add to the natural snow pack it takes longer to melt,” he says. “There is some compaction and impact on the vegetation and the soils on the ski areas.” Artificial snow though can help lower emissions overall, Scott says, by allowing people to ski closer to home. “If you took snowmaking away from New England, there would be no ski industry in the Northeast. Those who would want to ski from Boston or New York, would get on an airplane and fly to Colorado or Utah or drive up to Quebec,” he says. “Every one of those options has a massively larger carbon footprint.” But artificial snow, no matter how sustainably it's produced, can’t solve the problems many snowy locales are facing as temperatures rise. A [recent](https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2026-warming-winter-olympics) study found that, out of 93 potential host sites, only 52 would have reliable conditions for the Winter Olympics in the 2050s. Cortina d’Ampezzo now sees 41 fewer freezing days annually than when the Games were first held there in 1956\. In order to produce machine-made snow, the atmospheric temperatures need to be relatively close to freezing temperatures. It’s for this reason that the practice isn’t going to solve the issues that the Olympics and the winter sports industry more broadly will have to contend with in a warming world, says Molotch. “Artificial snow is not the silver bullet for addressing the issues related to climate change in the ski industry.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7373179/winter-olympics-2026-artificial-snow-climate-impact/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7373179/winter-olympics-2026-artificial-snow-climate-impact/"},"headline":"The Winter Olympics Need Artificial Snow, But It Comes With a Climate Impact","datePublished":"2026-02-09T19:45:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T00:54:39.586Z","description":"Organizers of the 2026 Winter Olympics have already produced over 56 million cubic feet of machine-made snow.","url":"https://time.com/7373179/winter-olympics-2026-artificial-snow-climate-impact/","keywords":["2026 Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympics","climate change"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt057125fbca4e405b/6998ce5d93610c0ad6c307a1/winter-olympics-milano-cortina-2026-artificial-snow.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Simmone Shah","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/"}],"articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt057125fbca4e405b/6998ce5d93610c0ad6c307a1/winter-olympics-milano-cortina-2026-artificial-snow.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Livigno Ahead Of The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics","caption":"Livigno Ahead Of The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics","creditText":"Mattia Ozbot—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2026-milan-and-cortina-dampezzo-olympics/","name":"2026 Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7373179/winter-olympics-2026-artificial-snow-climate-impact/","name":"The Winter Olympics Need Artificial Snow, But It Comes With a Climate Impact"}}]}] ```