The 2024 Paralympic Games ended on Sunday, September 8 in Paris, and Los Angeles will take over in four years. However, due to global warming, sporting events risk being compromised in many cities. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, himself acknowledged this in August 2024: ” Global warming forces us to consider the dates of the Olympic Games “.
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Beijing, Rome, Rio, Tokyo: in 2050, in these cities that have already hosted the Summer Olympics, the average temperature in July-August will be so high that it could endanger health athletes and the public under the sun.
The blame lies with greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate. This is what American scientists have highlighted Carbon Plana nonprofit organization that has developed a global map of extreme heat in the coming decades.
By 2050, high temperatures will become more frequent
Many cities will have an average temperature above the heat stress threshold, an indicator that includes degrees Celsius, but also humidity and solar radiation. Oriana Chegwidden coordinates the climate studies of this organization: ” We have observed that extreme heat will increase almost everywhere. Some cities that experience heat waves a few days a year will be exposed to them many days a year. And unfortunately, the dates of the Summer Olympics coincide with the hottest season in most cities in the northern hemisphere and some tropical cities. Heat has to be taken into account, it affects the most vulnerable and we have to take that into account in the calendars. It is about our adaptation to climate change. “.
The end of the Olympic Games in summer?
It will therefore be necessary to focus on Canada, northern Europe and the major cities of the southern hemisphere. Extreme heat is already a concern for international Olympic bodies. Sébastien Racinais, an engineer specializing in sports performance, is making recommendations to the IOC regarding competition schedules and the medical management of heat stroke: ” What was implemented at the Olympic Games and is now being implemented in other international events. It is a medical tent dedicated to the treatment of heat stroke, so we use a cooling system that is quite rudimentary, but very effective, namely the immersion of the athlete in a bath of ice water. »
The other option is obviously to move the date of the Olympic Games a little later in the year to avoid the hottest months.
The problem also arises for the Winter Olympics with the reduction in snow cover in many mountainous regions.
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