Too Hot For The Olympics?

Enjoy the summer Olympics, because by 2085 the earth’s climate will be so hot that very few cities will be able to host them. That’s the verdict from researchers at the University of California in Berkeley, who examined the viability of future Olympics sites based on a measurement that combines temperature, humidity, heat radiation, and wind—their wetbulb globe temperature (WBGT). A UC Berkeley  news release reports that the researchers focused on cities in the Northern Hemisphere, home to 90 percent of the world’s population, and they considered only cities with at least 600,000 residents, the size considered necessary for hosting the games. Cities with elevations over a mile above sea level were omitted, as the most recent Olympic games hosted at such an altitude (Mexico City in 1968) faced challenges of their own. The findings suggest that by 2085, Istanbul, Madrid, Rome, Paris, and Budapest—all cities that are or were in contention for either the 2020 or 2024 Summer Olympics—would be unfit to host the games. Tokyo, the city that has secured the 2020 summer Olympiad, would also be too hot to ensure athlete safety. Among the 8 out of 543 cities outside of western Europe would qualify as “low-risk” sites, including St. Petersburg, Russia; Riga, Latvia; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In North America, Calgary, and Vancouver would join San Francisco as the only three suitable sites. Latin America and Africa combined would fail to provide a single viable city. Western Europe is home to 25 cities that would be “low-risk” sites in 2085, according to the calculations. But by the 22nd century, if their projections play out, the scientists concluded only four Northern Hemisphere cities would be left on the list: Belfast and Dublin, Ireland; and Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland.