Accept snow substitutes

• Autores: Catherine Brahic
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3157-3158, 2017, págs. 72-73
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Forget Christmas; I'm dreaming of a white February. Seven days of natural snowfall, that's all I'm asking for while I'm on holiday. Call me a snob if you like, but artificial snow just doesn't cut it on the slopes. It feels like tiny glass beads under my skis, it's heavy, and it doesn't move or pack or stick like the real stuff does. Unless, of course, we can engineer our way out of the problem. A new generation of snow-making machines is promising to create artificial stuff that is as good as the real thing, and uses less energy and water to boot. Goodbye grainy fake snow, hello year-round fluffy powder. Could this be the answer to all our middle-class winter woes? When natural conditions aren't quite right, ski resorts have a few tricks to spur things along. The most effective is using snow machines that pump water and air out of a nozzle at high pressure.