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oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1643462025-12-17T03:06:43Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023

Mnookin, Seth White, Mackenzie Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing 2025-12-16T21:10:13Z 2025-12-16T21:10:13Z 2025-09 2025-08-08T17:34:36.976Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/164346 As winters warm and snowfall becomes less reliable, ski resorts worldwide increasingly depend on artificial snow to stay open. Snowmaking, once a stopgap, has become the backbone of entire seasons in a sprawling choreography of pumps and pressurized mist designed to hold trails together. At resorts like Vermont’s Bromley Mountain, snowmakers work through the night, drawing millions of gallons from limited reservoirs and operating within narrowing windows of cold air. What emerges is a portrait of winter in transition: less predictable, more expensive, increasingly manufactured. The efforts to preserve winter recreation carry growing costs in energy, water, and equitable access. Many smaller, independent ski areas struggle to meet the demands of climate adaptation, while larger resorts expand their operations, widening the divide in who can afford to sustain operations. In the American West, where rivers depend heavily on snowpack melt, the spread of snowmaking ties winter recreation to a water system already under immense strain. As artificial snow becomes the norm, winter is increasingly a season bought, built, and rationed, raising the question of whether attempts to keep the season alive are accelerating the changes that threaten to erase it. S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ Engineering Winter Thesis application/pdf Master Master of Science in Science Writing Publication unknown unknown <Publication xmlns="https://www.openaire.eu/cerif-profile/1.1/" id="4f78aa1b-e3d6-410d-895b-21cbeffe7f35"> <Type xmlns="https://www.openaire.eu/cerif-profile/vocab/COAR_Publication_Types">http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843</Type> <Title>Engineering Winter</Title> <PublishedIn> <Publication> </Publication> </PublishedIn> <PublicationDate>2025-09</PublicationDate> <Authors> <Author> <DisplayName>White, Mackenzie</DisplayName> <Affiliation> <OrgUnit> </OrgUnit> </Affiliation> </Author> </Authors> <Editors> </Editors> <Publishers> <Publisher> <DisplayName>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</DisplayName> <OrgUnit /> </Publisher> </Publishers> <License>https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/</License> <Abstract>As winters warm and snowfall becomes less reliable, ski resorts worldwide increasingly depend on artificial snow to stay open. Snowmaking, once a stopgap, has become the backbone of entire seasons in a sprawling choreography of pumps and pressurized mist designed to hold trails together. At resorts like Vermont’s Bromley Mountain, snowmakers work through the night, drawing millions of gallons from limited reservoirs and operating within narrowing windows of cold air. What emerges is a portrait of winter in transition: less predictable, more expensive, increasingly manufactured. The efforts to preserve winter recreation carry growing costs in energy, water, and equitable access. Many smaller, independent ski areas struggle to meet the demands of climate adaptation, while larger resorts expand their operations, widening the divide in who can afford to sustain operations. In the American West, where rivers depend heavily on snowpack melt, the spread of snowmaking ties winter recreation to a water system already under immense strain. As artificial snow becomes the norm, winter is increasingly a season bought, built, and rationed, raising the question of whether attempts to keep the season alive are accelerating the changes that threaten to erase it.</Abstract> <Access xmlns="http://purl.org/coar/access_right" > </Access> </Publication>