Sunshine and mostly brown slopes greet skiers in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Valley

CHAMONIX, France — Bright sunshine and mostly brown slopes welcomed skiers to the Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Valley just before New Year’s Eve, a sight that hardly came as a shock.

Across France, December 2015 was already on track to be the warmest since 1900, a fact since confirmed by Météo France, the national weather service.

The toll of global warming on Alpine ski resorts has already been well documented. A 2006-7 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which landed in the middle of another warm winter, had an immediate impact. In Germany, Der Spiegel warned of “Snow Cannons Against the Apocalypse,” and The Daily Telegraph in Britain declared, “Global Warming Could Spell Ruin for Alps.”

Read The New York Times story - “For French Ski Resorts, a Scramble to Offset Snow Deficit.”