Geohealth . The Impact of a Six-Year Climate Anomaly on the "Spanish Flu" Pandemic and WWI

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Geohealth


. 2020 Sep 1;4(9):e2020GH000277.
doi: 10.1029/2020GH000277. eCollection 2020 Sep.
The Impact of a Six-Year Climate Anomaly on the "Spanish Flu" Pandemic and WWI


Alexander F More ^{1 2 3} , Christopher P Loveluck ⁴ , Heather Clifford ² , Michael J Handley ² , Elena V Korotkikh ² , Andrei V Kurbatov ² , Michael McCormick ¹ , Paul A Mayewski ²



Affiliations

• PMID: 33005839
• PMCID: PMC7513628
• DOI: 10.1029/2020GH000277

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Climate Change; H1N1; Ice core; Pandemic; Spanish Flu; World War I.