Climate change: Chance of Elfstedentocht conditions drops to once every 32 years
Bad news for skating enthusiasts. Due to climate change, the chance of another Elfstedentocht is dwindling fast. Once upon a time, conditions aligned for skating 200 kilometers on natural ice between 11 cities in Friesland once every four years. Now there is a chance of that happening once every 32 years, according to a study published in the magazine Climate Change on Wednesday.
Researchers Hans Visser and Arthur Petersen stressed that there is still a large margin of uncertainty here, speaking to the Volkskrant. The KNMI arrived at a more optimistic estimate of once every 14 years using a different technique. “We thought it was fair to use another method,” Petersen said. Hylke de Vries of the KNMI co-authored the article. Both said that, no matter what calculation method is used, it is crystal clear that the chance of another Elfstedentocht is dwindling.
The researchers worked on the assumption that, for enough natural ice to form for the Elfstedentocht, the Netherlands needs dry and cold weather with temperatures below -4.2 degrees Celsius for 15 consecutive days. Historically, the ice surface was then thick enough to allow for the natural skating event.
They then calculated how likely it is that the Elfstedentocht can happen in several climate scenarios. In the middle of the last century, there was about a 25 percent chance of an Elfstedentocht every year. Now, that is only between 3 and 7 percent. If greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, the chance of an Elfstedentocht will remain approximately the same as now in the decades to come. If emissions increase, it is highly unlikely that there will be another Elfstedentocht ever again after the end of this century.
The researchers added that you can’t underestimate the variation in winters. “We still have the occasional outlier. Like in 2012, when it almost came to an Elfstedentocht. But then the winter in the weeks before hadn’t been very cold, and the water was still relatively warm. Then it takes a few extra days for everything to freeze over. Snowfall can also lead to ice, but the ice doesn’t get thicker quickly,” De Vries said. “That doesn’t change the fact that the chances of such a cold period decrease with global warming, no matter how you calculate that chance.”
The Elfstedentocht has only officially been held 15 times, according to the Volkskrant. The first time was in 1909. The largest gap between two events was 8,070 days, between 1963 and 1985. After that, there was an Elstedentocht in 1986 and 1997, but not since then.
