Scientists Mull El Niño, H1N1 Link

Research by Texas A&M University has raised speculation as to whether global warming has strengthened El Niño while simultaneously providing fodder for a connection between El Niño and the 1918 flu pandemic, which scientists now know was H1N1.

Through ocean modeling, Benjamin Giese, professor of oceanography at Texas A&M, found that the El Niño of 1918 was one of the strongest of the 20th century, Science Daily reported Sept. 15. El Niño is a weather phenomenon that occurs when the surface water over large areas of the Pacific Ocean is unusually warm, often impacting global weather systems.

Giese explained that ocean temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean has been used to track El Niño and under that standard the 1918 El Niño must have been as strong as the 1982 and 1997 El Niños, two of the strongest on record. Thus, some researchers have concluded that El Niño has increased in strength due to global warming. However, Giese remarked that the fact that 1918 El Niño occurred before significant warming as a result of greenhouse gasses lends speculation to that theory.

Interestingly, the findings suggest a potential relationship between El Niño and mortality from the 1918 flu pandemic. Giese said India was hit hard by the 1918 outbreak, killing 17 million, and it is known that there is a connection between El Niño and drought in India. The 1918 pandemic lasted until June 1920, infected approximately 500 million people worldwide and resulted in 25 million to 100 million deaths worldwide and at least 500,000 deaths in the United States. The El Niño of 1918 coincided with one of the worst droughts in India and it is likely that resulting famine was a factor in the spread of the flu, Giese told Science Daily.

Repeat In 2009?

Giese told Science Daily that parallel conditions between 1918 and 2009 are cause for concern. In 1918, winter and spring were colder than normal in North America and the flu outbreak began in March. Just after that, the 1918 El Niño strengthened; as it increased, the flu outbreak evolved into a pandemic, he said.

In 2009, we have seen a moderate to strong El Niño and have been fending off widespread H1N1 flu around the world, he noted.

Giese's research was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation and has been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

test image for this block