Climate Change Knocks It Out of the Park
https://eos.org/articles/climate-change-knocks-it-out-of-the-park
Excerpt: Home runs in baseball have been getting steadily more common for decades, and a recent spike in home runs might be driven by anthropogenic climate change. A new analysis combined decades of baseball statistics and ballistics data with predictive climate modeling. The study showed that more than 500 home runs since 2010 can be attributed to climate-driven, unseasonably hot temperatures. ...Jim Albert, a statistician at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, noted that although these results are statistically significant, the number of home runs attributable to climate change is small relative to other ball and player effects. ...Callahan speculated that there will likely come a point when team owners decide that the increase in home runs isn’t worth the heat-related health risks to players and fans. “I don’t know that we’ve seen a baseball game canceled for heat yet, but I think it’s coming,” he said. Teams might opt to shift from day games to night games, invest in a domed stadium, or even relocate to a cooler city—mitigation strategies that could have profound economic impacts on a region.....