How is the climate like baseball?

Explore a series of interdisciplinary explainers on climate science

From animations on the quantum mechanics of greenhouse gases to a photo essay on how scientists acquire climate data, this collection provides detailed explorations of how different branches of science have contributed to our understanding of climatology.

What's the difference between weather and climate?

A five-minute TedEd video exploring the differences between weather and climate – what they are, how we predict them, and what those predictions can tell us.

The physics of baseball pitches

To a nonfan, pitching a baseball may seem straightforward. Dive into the ridiculous physics of throwing a baseball at high speeds, from curveballs to sliders and more, and learn just how crucial those classic red seams of the baseball are in determining what the ball does in the air.

Carbon dioxide acts as a 'control knob' for Earth's climate

Although Earth's ice ages were primarily triggered by slow changes in the planet's orbit—known as Milankovitch cycles—these changes do not explain the extreme temperature swings during glacial periods. Carbon dioxide acts as a feedback mechanism, intensifying both cooling during ice ages and warming during their ends by reinforcing the initial changes sparked by orbital shifts.

View an illustrative guide to climate change for kids

While climates have changed throughout Earth's history, they are now changing faster than usual, driven by the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases, which trap more of the sun's radiation.

Watch a demonstration of the greenhouse effect in carbon dioxide

Some online experiments involving glass containers of air and carbon dioxide show no temperature differences upon exposure to infrared light because glass blocks that type of radiation. Using plastic bags, carbon dioxide can be demonstrated to absorb infrared radiation, thereby trapping energy and confirming its role as a greenhouse gas.

Methane: the other greenhouse gas

While most of the focus with respect to greenhouse gases lands on carbon dioxide, methane is the second most potent contributor. The gas, a carbon atom with four hydrogen atoms, is 25 times more potent than CO2 in terms of trapping heat over a 100...

Some athletes warm up with equipment from other sports

Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani uses a cricket bat; his teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws a javelin. Quarterback CJ Stroud shoots free throws. The reasons are partially physical (it's good to exercise different parts of your body) and partially mental (it's nice to take the pressure off with someone else's game).

Watch a visualization of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions

About 1.72 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent gases are released into the atmosphere every second in the Big Apple, enough to fill a balloon 33 feet across at standard pressure and 59 degrees Fahrenheit. After a day, the spheres would pile up into a pyramid whose base spans from the bottom of Manhattan to the south of Central Park.

Ranking every baseball stadium outfield by how hard it is to play

Park factors have long adjusted for how a ballpark helps or hurts hitters and pitchers, but rarely fielders. MLB's Statcast looked at five years of Outs Above Average data to shed light on the gap. It found that stadiums with roofs or in cities that regularly have sunny skies dominate the easy end, while those battered by wind or rain, like San Francisco's, are the hardest to play.

What should you eat to help the climate?

Climate change is impacted by what we eat and what we don't eat. Did you know, for instance, that livestock accounts for 14.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases each year? Eating less meat and dairy and more protein-rich plants like beans,...

Artificial photosynthesis turns CO₂ into sustainable fuel

Carbon conversion focuses on a central perplexing question: if carbon dioxide is a leading driver of climate change, and fossil fuels are made of carbon-based molecules, can we devise a way to convert CO₂ into useful alternatives efficiently? This video breaks down a potential pathway using artificial photosynthesis, which uses sunlight to convert CO₂ into fuel.

Fourteen ways to make baseball cool again

Baseball, while commonly known as America's pastime, gets a bit of a bad rap for being long, slow, and boring. Here are fourteen fun ideas to make the sport more interesting to combat dwindling attendance.

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

Statcast runs machine learning models in the 23-second gap between every pitch

The same Hawk-Eye cameras that track spin rate, exit velocity, and sprint speed also feed proprietary team models that update in near-real time. Some organizations have built streaming pipelines to surface insights mid-at-bat before the next pitch arrives.

The gray area that makes PEDs seem like leveling up to hardcore athletes

Doping in sports is broadly condemned as unsafe and unfair. Significant controversies in major sports, including baseball and cycling, have been prompted by the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs, which are described as clear-cut dangers and abuses of the rules. But to many competitors, the line between a PED and the next smart technique to adopt is unclear. This podcast episode explores that gray reality.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn

This NPR video makes clear that there are surprising similarities between how our bodies and fireworks function. Fireworks and our bodies are both packed with carbon atoms, and have controlled releases of energy that create heat—keeping the human body warm or fueling fireworks' heat, respectively. What's more, the human body even emits a tiny bit of light somewhat similar to fireworks—though it's not visible to the human eye.

The composition of comets earned them the nickname 'dirty snowballs'

The icy relics of the solar system are composed of rock, gravel, dust, and frozen molecules, such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, and water. Once close to the sun, these compounds sublimate into gases, creating a fuzzy cloud that earned the comets another nickname in history: hairy stars.

What is a heat dome?

The world is seeing regular heat waves with multiple causes, including so-called "heat domes," a term rising in use in recent years. A heat dome occurs when the atmosphere traps hot ocean air like a lid or cap, creating stifling conditions and resulting in extended periods of heat. See an illustration of this phenomenon and read how it works with this brief explainer.

Scientists testing how climate change affected plants found in a years-long simulation study that poison ivy grew 70% faster than it did without extra carbon dioxide

The experiments in the 1990s were designed to simulate potential 2050 conditions, using carefully controlled circular forest plots with gas pumped into them.

An exploration of what makes Olympic curling so difficult and strange

The sport is often maligned for its oddity, but this impassioned video argues it's one of the more impressive (and good-natured) sports in the Olympics. Sometimes labeled "chess on ice," curling at the Olympics uses 44-pound, 60-million-year-old granite stones all extracted from the same Scottish island.

A look at Mauna Loa, which produces the gold standard of global CO2 measurements.

Mauna Loa Observatory is a station that measures the elements in the atmosphere that contribute to climate change. It is located on the side of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. 

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

The NFL is so successful because it is perfectly suited for television

The predictable weekly cadence of football games ritualizes the experience of watching together, and their relative scarcity makes every game meaningful. With the stop-and-go play of the sport, there are predictable, repeating stoppages to allow broadcasters to sell lots of advertising inventory. The league sits in the sweet spot compared to MLB (many games) and NBA and soccer (continuous play with fewer ads). This Acquired episode distills fascinating insights into the NFL's business and history.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

An in-depth look at Venus, our gassy neighbor

Get to know Venus, one of our closest planetary neighbors. Despite being named for the Roman goddess of love—and the only one named for a woman—Venus is an searingly hot place covered in thick carbon dioxide clouds, volcanoes, and warped mountain ranges. Yet it has a lot to teach us about planet Earth.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

How golf equipment is made

With just clubs, a ball, and a tee, the game of golf doesn't have the amount of equipment seen in other sports. But each piece of equipment has a very intricate process for its creation. Watch this Science Channel video to see the specialized equipment used to create golf balls, golf clubs, golf carts, and golf tees.

Questioning the results of life on K2-18b

An analysis of the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b identified the presence of biosignatures—molecules that are created by living things on Earth. This discovery may indicate life exists beyond Earth, but the lack of environmental data complicates the interpretation of results.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.