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

2020/09/01 by Alexander More, Christopher Loveluck, Heather Clifford +5 · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Mathematics · Medicine · #Anomaly (physics) #COVID-19 epidemiological studies #Climate Change and Health Impacts #Climatology #Context (archaeology) #Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) #Disease #Geography #Infectious disease (medical specialty) #Influenza pandemic #Medicine #Pandemic #Viral Infections and Vectors

paper · pdf · doi:10.1029/2020gh000277

openalex publication_date 2020/09/01 · openalex created_date 2020/09/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

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.

Citations

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Cited by

• Spanish flu [wikipedia]

Related

• Paths of Infection: The First World War and the Origins of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
• The Spanish Influenza Pandemic: a lesson from the history 100 years after 1918
• The origins of the great pandemic
• Mortality burden of the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in Europe
• The Spanish influenza pandemic in occidental Europe (1918–1920) and victim age