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

More, Alexander F.; Loveluck, Christopher P.; Clifford, Heather; Handley, Michael J.; Korotkikh, Elena V.; Kurbatov, Andrei V.; McCormick, Michael; Mayewski, Paul A.

doi:10.1029/2020GH000277

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

More, Alexander F.; Loveluck, Christopher P.; Clifford, Heather; Handley, Michael J.; Korotkikh, Elena V.; Kurbatov, Andrei V.; McCormick, Michael; Mayewski, Paul A.

Authors

Alexander F. More

Professor CHRISTOPHER LOVELUCK CHRISTOPHER.LOVELUCK@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
PROFESSOR OF MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN ARCHAEOLOGY

Heather Clifford

Michael J. Handley

Elena V. Korotkikh

Andrei V. Kurbatov

Michael McCormick

Paul A. Mayewski

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.

Citation

More, A. F., Loveluck, C. P., Clifford, H., Handley, M. J., Korotkikh, E. V., Kurbatov, A. V., McCormick, M., & Mayewski, P. A. (2020). The Impact of a Six‐Year Climate Anomaly on the “Spanish Flu” Pandemic and WWI. GeoHealth, 4(9), Article e2020GH000277. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000277

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Aug 27, 2020
Online Publication Date	Sep 15, 2020
Publication Date	2020-09
Deposit Date	Sep 29, 2020
Publicly Available Date	Oct 1, 2020
Journal	GeoHealth
Electronic ISSN	2471-1403
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	4
Issue	9
Article Number	e2020GH000277
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000277
Keywords	Spanish Flu; World War I; Climate Change; H1N1; Pandemic; Ice core
Public URL	https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4930205
Publisher URL	https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GH000277
Additional Information	Received: 2020-05-28; Accepted: 2020-08-27; Published: 2020-09-24