International Ski Federation (FIS) president Gianfranco Kasper knows weather issues are nothing new in his sport but says this season has been particularly testing.

"It has been a very unpleasant season with high temperatures and almost no snow," he told reporters.

"This will have consequences for the future, not so much for the World Cup but because, for instance, the children have had no races and no possibility to train.

"Tourism has also been hit and several resorts face financial problems," he added.

The scenery in Are, with slopes covered by a thick layer of fresh snow, is reassuring after the sight of bald mountains everywhere in the Alps for the past few months, which led to many races being rescheduled or cancelled.

"There is more snow here than we have seen all winter in the rest of Europe," said Kasper.

GLOBAL TREND

Local weather official Pia Hultgren, however, said this part of the Sweden was also hit by a global trend resulting in shorter, milder winters.

"The winter has settled in now but it did so very late this year," she said. "We had some snow in November but after that it was exceptionally mild. The lakes didn't freeze until a few weeks ago."

Hearing the world's top climate scientists say last week in Paris that mankind was to blame for global warming was not surprising news to ski experts, who have watched snow melt and glaciers recede for decades.

"It's tough when I look at the glaciers now and remember what they looked like 10 years ago or when I started skiing," said Italy's Lucia Recchia, a super-G silver medallist on home snow at the previous world championships two years ago in Bormio.

"When I have children in the future, they won't be able to ski in the summer," she told Reuters. "It's something we have to think about. It's changing a lot."

The scientists' "best estimate" prediction that temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century could lead to, amongst greater catastrophes, the end of Alpine skiing in its current form.

Experts point out that high altitude glaciers, traditionally chosen for early events, are receding worldwide and some predict many of them could disappear in 20 years.

At least one study projects that by 2050 there may not be enough snow left in the Alps to stage a race at all.

NEW LOCATIONS

Looming large on the horizon are the futures of the World Cup's most prestigious and important stops in Kitzbuehel, Wengen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, three mid-altitude venues that can face weather issues even at the best of times.

With the Alpine nations, the cradle of the sport and home to most events, clearly suffering, locations in Eastern Europe could be considered.

Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Russia are emerging as ski nations and building resorts. Possibilities also exist in vast countries hardly explored by skiing such as China.

Indoor facilities, known as ski domes, could also offer an alternative. There is a spectacular one in Dubai which the German women's team have used as a training venue.

Another radical move would be to stage races in the southern hemisphere, where European teams have been training off season for years, notably in Argentina and Chile.

However, it is primarily a European sport and since the 1990s cancellations have become a regular feature. This year the entire season has been disrupted, raising fears the sport's immediate future is in doubt.

"It's hard not to think about it but I'm pretty sure this is a weird year and we'll be okay for the future," said an optimistic Cook.

Others, like Cook's compatriot Bode Miller, defending his downhill and super-G titles here, pointed out that the problem went far beyond Alpine skiing.

"The effects of global warming are something I've been concerned about for a long time," Miller told reporters.

"It's a very serious issue but I'm a bit of a fatalist and I don't think anything will be done about it until a tragedy happens."

(Additional reporting by Oliver Grassman)