Coffel Quoted in CNN Article on the Increase in Number of MLB Home Runs and Climate Change

April 11, 2023

CNN

Ethan Coffel

Geography & the Environment Department

Climate Change

United States

CNN

Ethan Coffel

A new study, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, found that more than 500 home runs since 2010 can be linked to unusually warm temperatures. If temperatures continue to warm rapidly because of planet-cooking pollution, climate change could end up accounting for 10% of all home runs by the end of the century.

Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment, who is not involved with the study, says the research succeeded in ruling out other potential factors and homing in on the influence of temperature.

“The authors show that the effect of warming on home runs is less for indoor stadiums and night games, making a somewhat controlled experiment,” Coffel says. “There may have been other changes to gameplay or equipment which could have also affected trends in home runs, but one might not expect those things to differ between indoor and outdoor stadiums or night versus day games.”