athlete performance
Image by Trent Alan / Midjourney AI

As climate change continues to affect our planet, its impact extends beyond the obvious, touching many surprising aspects of our lives, including sports and athlete performance. For Major League Baseball (MLB) batters, this impact is apparent, as AMS research published on April 7 reveals that climate change may be contributing to an increase in home runs.

With athlete performance on the line, the findings raise questions about how the sport may need to adapt to the changing climate in the years to come–as rising temperatures may have diminishing returns soon enough.

Baseball has long been known as a warm-weather sport, with the summer months making for ideal playing conditions. However, as global temperatures rise, researchers have discovered a fascinating link between climate change and the increase in home runs hit by MLB players. Recent data analysis indicates that since 2010, an extra 58 homers per year can be attributed to higher temperatures.

Swinging for the Climate Fences: Analyzing Baseball Data

The world of baseball is teeming with statistics, making it the ideal sport for data geeks. Sabermetrics, the analysis of baseball statistics, plays a significant role in team management, coaching, and player strategy. Christopher Callahan, a Ph.D. student in climate modeling and impacts at Dartmouth College, saw the potential to use this wealth of data to investigate the possible link between climate change and the recent surge in home runs.

“Until now, nobody had investigated it by looking at the numbers,” Callahan noted.

With this in mind, he collaborated with two other researchers in different fields, using their collective expertise to mine the data and uncover the relationship between warming air temperatures and increased home runs.

The basis for the link between climate change and home runs lies in fundamental physics. The ideal gas law states that as temperatures rise, the air’s density will fall, reducing air resistance on the ball. This reduced friction allows the ball to travel further, increasing the likelihood of a home run. To investigate this connection, Callahan’s team employed several approaches.

First, they analyzed the effect of temperature changes at the game level. They found that for every rise of 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in a day’s high temperature, the number of home runs in a game increased by nearly 2 percent.

Callahan’s team also used a climate computer model to account for greenhouse gas emissions, revealing that warming linked to human activities led to an average of 58 more home runs each season from 2010 to 2019.

A Heated Performance: Climate Change’s Future Impact on Baseball and Athlete Performance

While climate change has not yet been the dominant factor in the surge of home runs, Callahan warns that this could change if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. “If we continue to emit greenhouse gases strongly, we could see much more rapid increases in home runs moving forward,” he said.

This potential escalation has led Major League Baseball to introduce new rule changes for the 2023 season, with some fans arguing that the abundance of home runs has made the sport less enjoyable to watch. Teams may need to adapt to rising temperatures by shifting day games to night games or adding domes to stadiums, as Callahan’s research found no effect of outdoor temperature on home runs in games played under a dome.

To mitigate the effects of climate change on baseball and other sports, investing in clean energy solutions for stadiums, such as solar panels and energy-efficient lighting, could play a vital role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

However, climate change may prompt even more dramatic changes to the sport in the coming years. Madeleine Orr, a researcher studying the impacts of climate change on sports at Loughborough University London, expressed concern about baseball’s future. “In 30 years, I don’t think, without substantial change, baseball exists in the current model,” Orr said.

Callahan shares Orr’s sentiment, stating, “This sport, and all sports, are going to see major changes in ways that we cannot anticipate.”

The Global Warming Games: The Wider Impact of Climate Change on Athlete Performance

The effects of climate change on athlete performance extend beyond the MLB. As extreme temperatures become more common, people are less likely to exercise, particularly obese and older adults. This is concerning, given that insufficient exercise contributes to up to 3.2 million preventable premature deaths each year.

Record-breaking summer temperatures are predicted to become increasingly frequent over the next 30 years, and an additional 38,000 deaths per year could result from heat stress related to climate change according to the WHO.

These rising temperatures will also affect professional athletes, as marathon runners typically record faster times when outdoor temperatures are around 10 degrees Celsius. As temperatures increase, pushing the limits of human performance and endurance becomes more challenging.

Football players, too, will feel the impact of higher temperatures. By 2050, the average football player is expected to “experience 50% more hot days than they currently do,” which could lead to postponed, rescheduled, or canceled matches due to the health risks associated with extreme heat. FIFA has had to reschedule the 2022 World Cup from June to November to accommodate the high temperatures in Qatar, the host nation.

Baseball, along with other sports, will have to face the challenges posed by a warming world and develop strategies to ensure continued peak athlete performance. While some changes may seem relatively minor, more dramatic shifts in the sports landscape could be on the horizon as climate change continues to alter the world we know.

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