New climate data for ancient Italy point to temperature and rainfall influences on past infectious disease outbreaks.
For those who enjoy pondering the Roman Empire’s rise and fall — you know who you are — consider the close link between ancient climate change and infectious disease outbreaks. . Reasons for strong associations between cold, dry phases and those disease outbreaks are poorly understood. But the findings, based on climate reconstructions from around 200 B.C. to A.D.
Dinoflagellates live in the sunlit upper part of the sea. Different species of this organism assume signature shapes in the late summer and autumn before settling on the ocean floor. Some species live only in cold waters, others only in warm waters. The team also used dinoflagellates to gauge changes in ancient rainfall. Plentiful rainfall in central and northern Italy causes rivers to discharge nutrient-rich water into the Gulf of Taranto. Dinoflagellate species known to rely on plentiful nutrients thrive under those conditions and end up on the sea floor. Other dinoflagellate species prefer nutrient-poor water. Their preservation in underwater sediment reflects stretches of scant rainfall.
Then, phases of increasingly cold and dry conditions occurred shortly before or during three pandemics: the Antonine Plague, which spread from Egypt to Europe and the British Isles in the late 160s; the Plague of Cyprian, which struck during a time of Roman political turmoil in the mid-200s; and the Justinianic Plague, which reached Italy by 543. By the late 500s, average temperatures were about 3 degrees Celsius colder than the highest averages during the Roman Warm Period.
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