There may be one benefit to climate change. Another home run at Dodger Stadium

Nothing good comes to mind when you think about the effects of climate change.

Wildfires, floods, melting ice, heat waves, coral reefs.

But then there is baseball, and one possible silver lining.

Has global warming turned Dodger Stadium into a launch pad?

I was watching ESPN’s Monday night broadcast of LA’s game against Tampa Bay when the play-by-play announcer said at one point, it was an article of faith that fly balls didn’t travel far in the heavy night air of Chavez Ravine.

However, the announcer continued, a Dodger official had told him that a few years ago, “in general, the ocean layer is gone, and the ball has started to be run at night, and you can see it now in the numbers. It’s a home run hitters park.”

This is statistically true. Between 2020 and 2025, Dodger Stadium had more home runs than any other major league ballpark, though this year’s total still lags behind last year’s pace. Across Major League Baseball, home run rates have fluctuated but steadily increased over the years, with this year’s pace slightly ahead of last year’s.

That can’t all be due to climate change, as retired Dodger great Steve Garvey will explain in a minute. On a city-by-city and decade-by-decade basis, there are many factors in total home run numbers, from ballpark size to pitching tactics to the number of hitters in each lineup.

But with Dodger Stadium, the marine layer angle jumped out at me because I’m always looking for complementary ways to tell the story of climate change. In the past, I’ve written about the slow decline of Joshua trees, the impact of reduced fog and high temperatures on California’s wine industry, the growing problem of bug bites and the gradual migration of great white sharks to the coast.

And now we have to ask ourselves: Is global warming producing more home runs than steroids?

Warming is real, but it’s not new. In Game 2 of the 2017 World Series, the temperature at Dodger Stadium exceeded 100 when the first pitch was thrown, and the ballpark was like a popcorn machine. The Dodgers and Astros combined for a record eight home runs, and the Times story quoted a NASA climate scientist who noted that the ocean layer was no show.

While watching Monday night’s game, I texted Dodger fan Edgar McGregor, a meteorologist warning neighbors about the severe weather conditions that caused the Eaton fire. I asked what you thought of this theory of a link between the reduced sea level and the number of home runs.

“There is absolute truth to that,” McGregor said, explaining that “as ocean temperatures warm, the ocean layer weakens.”

McGregor broke down aerodynamics: “Cold air is denser, so the baseball has to throw more atoms out of the way as it travels deeper. Warmer air has lower volume, so balls travel farther.”

UC climate scientist Daniel Swain said this pattern will accelerate “for the rest of our lives as the air continues to warm and baseballs continue to face less opposition.”

This doesn’t mean an infield pop-up will turn into a home run, but Swain said balls travel four inches higher with a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise, “which means the average hit is traveling about 1-2 feet more than it would have in the early 20th century.”

That doesn’t sound like an amazing difference, but with thousands of balls hit over the years, that’s a lot of outs that turn into doubles, triples and home runs. Swain sent me a 2023 study from the Journal of the American Meteorological Society titled “Global warming, home runs, and the future of America’s pastime.”

The researchers reviewed the data between 2010 and 2019, and found that “higher temperatures are running at home,” about 50 per year “caused by historical warming.” That adds up to about 500 more home runs.

The scientists concluded: “Each degree of global warming is associated with 95 more home runs per baseball season.”

Home runs get fans on their feet, just like in Monday night’s game, when Kyle Tucker pumped a single over the right-field wall and Miguel Rojas blasted the game-winner with a shot that nearly cleared the left-field fence. So I don’t want to sound like a party pooper, but there is no bigger issue in the world than the rapid destruction of the only sand we have.

If the right team hits a homer, feel free to go ahead and cheer. But if the wrong team hits one, you can remind friends and loved ones that each homer is like a fossil bugle call signaling the end of the world as we know it.

Fortunately, the marine layer has not completely disappeared. We still have a gray May this year and a gloomy June. I wondered, though, if there are any retired Dodgers who might think they would have hit more home runs if they had a chance for warmer weather.

“I remember some balls that didn’t go very far, especially compared to day games,” said James Loney, who played for the Dodgers’ first team from 2006 to 2012 and had 106 games with three teams.

Today’s Dodgers hit more home runs mainly because the lineup is full, Loney said. But he said he remembered the players from the visiting teams hitting a long ball and passing him at first, thinking that “they were playing at home, then they turned right and went back to boxing.”

Garvey, also a first baseman, hit 272 home runs in his 18-year career and told me that if he had played in this era, “I probably would have hit another 40 or 50 home runs.”

But Garvey, who started with the Dodgers in 1969, said that the weather was one of the many reasons that led to many runs in today’s game, who left the penalty and chose to use power.

Garvey said stronger bats, stronger balls, pitchers throwing more (high velocity means more pop for hitters) and launch angles are more talked about in baseball than at Cape Canaveral.

“We’ve never heard the term ‘launch angle,'” said Garvey, who told me he stepped up to the plate trying to hit a line drive, not a moon shot.

“My goal used to be a .300 average, 200 hits, 100 RBIs and 20-plus home runs,” said Garvey, who hit 20 or more homers six times, with a high of 33 in 1977.

Today’s Dodgers have plenty of swat in their lineup, ranking behind only the Yankees in home runs so far as they chase a third straight World Series ring. They are in first place even though one of the greatest hitters of all time, Shohei Ohtani, is a dozen homers shy of last year’s pace.

But Swain has good news for Ohtani, Dodger fans and short-sleeve shirt manufacturers.

“This year, there will be very high humidity for most of the baseball season in SoCal due to a very strong El Niño event and record warm ocean temperatures,” he said.

“So, it really makes sense,” continued Swain, “that the combination of long-term warming from climate change, as well as short-term warming and increased moisture from El Niño and near-shore ocean warming, could increase the number of home runs this season.”

One can only hope that the home team does more celebrating.

Go Dodgers.

steve.lopez@latimes.com