Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Volga bomb here. Olympic Games are being held in Beijing, China and its surrounding areas, which is actually a little strange given that the annual snowfall for the site of the National Alpine Ski Center gets just over eight inches. That's twenty one of snow a year, but the venue requires more than forty two point three million cubic feet or one two million cubic meters of snow.
That means a lot of artificially produced snow has been shooting out of snow cannons onto the mountain sides so that there's enough of a blanket for skiers and snowboarders to compete. In fact, is the first Winter Olympics to rely almost entirely on fake snow. That's not as terrible as it might sound, since Olympic level athletes are used
to gliding across fake snow. A many ski resorts use fake snow to open the slopes early and extend the season's well into spring, especially now that climate change is affecting ski seasons around the world. In the United States, for example, temperatures are up across of the nation with
the highest temperature increases happening during the winter. Warmer winters mean less snow in many regions, and they also mean that the snow that does fall often melts a little during the day, then develops a crust of hard ice overnight that makes more less than ideal skiing and snowboarding, and it's really rotten if you fall down. Because these athletes have so much experience with different kinds of snow, they can definitely tell the difference between human made snow
and the real deal. A fake snow can feel stickier than real snow, so athletes may use a harder wax on their skis and snowboards to help them glide across the surface. The fake snow is also firmer and harder packed. A natural snow, on the other hand, feels smooth as gears speed down the slopes and snowboarders drop into half pipes. The difference in the feeling comes down to how the
snow is made and how it reaches the slopes. A natural snow is about ten percent ice mixed with about nine air, whereas human made snow is thirty ice and sevent air. Snow that's made in clouds far above the ground has those signature pointy crystals, then falls from the sky and on its way to Earth, forms large fluffy snow flakes with lots of air in each flake. Man made snow has a rounded crystals because of the velocity
of being shot out of a snow gun. That shape means that the flakes will be denser, with less air between the crystals. Human made snow also only falls several feet before it hits the ground, rather than hundreds or thousands of feet, so the crystals don't have time to form fluffy flakes even if they could. The airy nature of natural snow means that it melts faster, whereas human made snow holds up better if it rains, But fake snow does get icier faster, which can be particularly tricky
when you're racing for the gold medal. That's another reason that athletes train on as many kinds of snow as possible. But no matter what kind of snow is on a mountain, it's going to be groomed by machine before major competitions. Often a base of denser human made snow will be laid down before any natural snow falls, but it's not a perfect process. The two kinds of snow are usually mixed, so athletes need to be ready with their training and
their wax for any kind of condition. Today's episode is based on the article will Beijing Athletes now fake snow from real snow? On how stuff Works dot com written by Kristen Hall Geisler. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang and Ramsey Out. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H