Theprecursorto the Winter Olympic Games was held in 1901 , just five years after the first Summer Olympic Games in 1896 . jazz then as the Nordic Games and deem initially in Sweden , this insensate weather contender became so democratic that it began move from country to country and grew into one of the most - watched consequence in the world . The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi , Russia , drew century of millions ofviewers , including more than half of the full population of the United States . Soon , however , the Winter Olympics may struggle to find a urban center cold enough to host the games .
A team of researchers lead by Daniel Scott , a geography professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario , has pile up climate information from old Winter Games and applied current clime alteration models to the historic data . Bypredictingfuture winter weather conditions , Scott and other investigator posit that by 2050 , nine of the prior Winter Games locations will not be faithfully frigid enough to ever host the contest again .
Although theresearchwas originally published in 2014 , it was recently updated to include the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang , South Korea , and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing , China . Scott ’s squad used rising spherical nursery throttle emissions projections to estimate an gain of 4 degree Fahrenheit ( 2.2 degrees Celsius ) by 2050 . Using this model , Chamonix , France , the site of the first prescribed Olympic Winter Games in 1924 , would have an addition of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit ( 3 level Celsius ) by 2050 , urinate its snow and temperature range too irregular to guarantee it could host the Winter Games .
A warming climate may affect not only future Winter Olympics , but athletes ' power totrain . In the United States , for model , warm weather is predicted to trim down the duration ofskiand snowboard seasons by half . This is expected to occur by 2050 . By 2090 , the current length of ski and snowboard season will be reduced by 80 pct .
