World's largest indoor ski resort opens in Shanghai as China logs hottest month

Shanghai opened the world's largest indoor ski resort on Friday, welcoming snowsuit-clad visitors to its faux pistes as China reported its hottest August in 60 years.

This year's northern summer saw the highest global temperatures ever recorded, and in the faux-Alpine square where the resort's opening ceremony took place, the mercury had already hit 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) by 9:00 am local time.

But the temperature plummeted to well below zero inside the cavernous atrium, where visitors switched from sunglasses and T-shirts into padded overalls, some opting for designer goggles or flapping bat-winged helmets.

At the top of a piste, snowboarder Jessica Zhang was unphased by the August heat record.

"When it comes to climate, I feel like you get ups and downs in temperature—maybe every few years a hottest year comes along," she shrugged.

This year is likely to be the Earth's hottest on record, beating the record set in 2023, according to the EU's climate monitor.

Climate change has affected traditional outdoor skiing destinations, with ice and snow retreating as global temperatures rise.

China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, though in recent years it has also emerged as a global leader in renewable energy.

Even as the country warms, huge government support and the interest of an expanding middle class have seen the ski industry coast to new heights in China, particularly after Beijing hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The country leads the world when it comes to indoor ski resort building, boasting half of the world's top ten based on snow area, according to Daxue Consulting.

On Friday, the Shanghai L*SNOW Indoor Skiing Theme Resort was officially certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest, overtaking the previous record-holder—also in China, in northern Harbin.

Modeled like a glacier, the 90,000-square-meter snow world towers over coastal Lingan, about 1.5 hours away from the city center.

A Shanghai government report in August acknowledged that such projects "will inevitably consume a lot of energy".

But it noted the resort was built to maximize energy reuse, through elements such as its ice storage and waste heat recovery systems, as well as extensive rooftop photovoltaics.

Its completion has been pushed back several times—industry media reported its originally planned opening date to be 2019.

Its soft opening period has not been wholly smooth either.

The resort said it would add more safety measures after an accident in which a guest claimed a finger was severed, state media reported Wednesday.

© 2024 AFP