More than 500 home runs since 2010 due to warmer, thinner air caused by global warming. A Dartmouth study found that climate change is impacting Major League Baseball, with over 500 home runs since 2010 attributable to higher temperatures, and estimates that up to 10% or more of home runs could b
A new study from Dartmouth College reveals that climate change is impacting Major League Baseball, attributing over 500 home runs since 2010 to higher temperatures. The study analyzed more than 100,000 games and 220,000 hits, finding that warmer temperatures reduce air density, causing baseballs to fly farther.
“There’s a very clear physical mechanism at play in which warmer temperatures reduce the density of air. Baseball is a game of ballistics, and a batted ball is going to fly farther on a warm day.” —While the researchers attribute only 1% of recent home runs to climate change, they found that rising temperatures could account for 10% or more of home runs by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions and climate change continue unabated.
Increase in average number of home runs per year for each American major league ballpark with every 1-dgree Celsius increase in global average temperature. Credit: Christopher Callahan They found that the Chicago Cubs’ open-air Wrigley Field—which hosts only a limited number of night games—would experience the largest spike with more than 15 home runs per season, while the Tampa Bay Rays’ domed Tropicana Field would remain level at one home run or less no matter how hot it gets outside. The Boston Red Sox’s iconic Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium, the home of their archrivals in New York, fall in the middle and would experience nearly the same effect as temperatures rise.
“Major League Baseball is a multibillion-dollar industry that is very data-rich, and that privilege allowed us to identify the effect of climate. This critical cultural touchstone for what it means to be American also happens to have a very salient relationship with physics in that temperature actually affects gameplay,” Mankin says.
A baseball enthusiast himself, DeSilva initially lent more credence to more advanced analytics for improving a hitter’s performance. Through EEES, he and co-author Nathaniel Dominy, the Charles Hansen Professor of Anthropology, were able to ask questions that increasingly zeroed in on the effect of climate.
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