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Story summary
- A study in Communications Earth & Environment links a volcanic eruption around 1345 to the Black Death's start in Europe.
- Researchers Martin Bauch and Ulf Büntgen show that climate instability and crop failures from the eruption prompted Italian city-states to import Black Sea grain.
- The grain likely carried plague-infected fleas, contributing to the pandemic's onset in 1347.
- The study highlights the climate–trade–disease linkage shaping the Black Death's emergence.
