A Once-in-a-Century Climate ‘Anomaly’ Might Have Made World War I Even Deadlier

(John Finney Photography/Moment/Getty Images)

An abnormally bad season of weather may have had a significant impact on the death toll from both World War I and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, according to new research, with many more lives being lost due to torrential rain and plummeting temperatures.
Through a detailed analysis of an ice core extracted from the Swiss-Italian Alps, scientists were able to get a close look at the climate patterns across Europe between 1914 and 1919, linking them to the war and the pandemic for the first time.The unusually wet and cold conditions could well have contributed to more lives being lost out on the battlefield, as well as interfering with bird migration behaviour – potentially pushing birds and people closer together than they would otherwise have been.”Atmospheric circulation changed and th
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