The Impact of a Six‐Year Climate Anomaly on the “Spanish Flu” Pandemic and WWI

The H1N1 “Spanish influenza” pandemic of 1918–1919 caused the highest known number of deaths recorded for a single pandemic in human history. Several theories have been offered to explain the virulence and spread of the disease, but the environmental context remains underexamined. In this study, we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:GeoHealth
Main Authors: More, Alexander F., Loveluck, Christopher P., Clifford, Heather, Handley, Michael J., Korotkikh, Elena V., Kurbatov, Andrei V., McCormick, Michael, Mayewski, Paul A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: American Geophysical Union 2020
Subjects:
ice core
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000277
https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/file/4930205/1/2020GH000277
https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4930205
Description
Summary:The H1N1 “Spanish influenza” pandemic of 1918–1919 caused the highest known number of deaths recorded for a single pandemic in human history. Several theories have been offered to explain the virulence and spread of the disease, but the environmental context remains underexamined. In this study, we present a new environmental record from a European, Alpine ice core, showing a significant climate anomaly that affected the continent from 1914 to 1919. Incessant torrential rain and declining temperatures increased casualties in the battlefields of World War I (WWI), setting the stage for the spread of the pandemic at the end of the conflict. Multiple independent records of temperature, precipitation, and mortality corroborate these findings.

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