Forget the time clock. A new study claims that climate change is changing America’s pastime, and big sluggers aren’t the least bit bothered. That’s right, hotter air means thinner air, which means more homers in the big leagues.
Weather conditions have always been an important variable in the game of baseball, but this is changing the game altogether. Statisticians at Dartmouth College have deduced that climate change around the world has contributed to approximately 50 extra home runs a year in the MLB.
A new study finds that climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters.
The reason? Warmer, thinner air. https://t.co/GYRASiB5lp pic.twitter.com/staPWFkOhs
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 8, 2023
In the study, scientists analyzed over 200,000 major league hits since 2010, and the results will knock you out of the park.
“We isolate human-caused warming with climate models, finding that >500 home runs since 2010 are attributable to historical warming,” the found, according to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) via AP News.
Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols won’t be very pleased to learn that future sluggers will be hitting dingers more easily than they ever could. The BAMS also offered a few suggestions for the MLB, noting that “[a]daptations such as building domes on stadiums or shifting day games to night games reduce temperature’s effects on America’s pastime.” (RELATED: Major League Baseball Makes Major Rule Changes)
According to the study, stadiums fitted with domes, such as Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay, will be less affected by the warming climate (not that the Rays hit many homers to begin with).