Melting Swiss Glacier Reveals Human Remains

29th July 2023

Last modified on August 2nd, 2023

It is the latest discovery as climate change leads to glaciers melting & revealing their secrets. This time it’s the discovery of German climber missing since 1986. UPDATED

The body was discovered by climbers on the Theodul glacier above the ski resort of Zermatt.

They spotted a hiking boot and crampons in the melting ice.

It proved to be the body of a German climber, who disappeared 37 years ago in 1986 at the age of 38.

A search and rescue operation at the time failed to find him.

Now retreating glaciers caused by climate change, are revealing their secrets.

“DNA analysis enabled the identification of a mountain climber who had been missing since 1986,” said the Swiss cantonal police in a statement.

“In September 1986, a German climber, who was 38 at the time, had been reported missing after not returning from a hike.”

The climber’s remains underwent a forensic analysis at the Valais Hospital in Sion and have been linked to the 1986 disappearance.

Glacier melt from global warming, has led to an increase in discoveries of the remains of hikers, climbers, skiers and other alpinists who went missing years ago.

“The retreat of the glaciers brings to light an increasing number of missing alpinists who were reported missing several decades ago,” added the Swiss cantonal police.

In 2015 the remains of two Japanese climbers who went missing on the Matterhorn in a 1970 snowstorm were found.

We have reported on the growing number of discoveries as glaciers across Europe melt.

Melting glaciers reveal human remains

Other items have also been found, from planes to Iron Age tools, as we have reported:

Receeding glaciers reveals wreckage from 1986 Swiss plane crash

Newspapers from crashed jet found in melting ice

Norway’s melting glaciers reveal Viking and Iron Age Finds

Retreating alpine glaciers. Image © PlanetSKI

Along with PlanetSKI, the BBC has been looking at the issue:

“The melting ice has consequences much greater than the discovery of long lost climbers,” reported the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes from Switzerland.

“Alpine glaciers are key to Europe’s environment; the winter snow they store fills European rivers such as the Rhine and the Danube, providing water for crops, or for cooling nuclear power stations.

“Both this year and last, water levels in the Rhine have at times been too low for the freight barges that carry supplies from Holland down through Germany to Switzerland.

“The meltwater also cools the rivers.

“Without the cooling effect, the water becomes too warm, and fish die,” she said.

Switzerland’s glaciers have lost half their mass in the past 85 years.

Full extent of Swiss glacier melt revealed

Last summer the Swiss glaciers lost 6% of their volume.

“2022 was a disastrous year for Swiss glaciers: all ice melt records were smashed by the great dearth of snow in winter and continuous heatwaves in summer,” said the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

Almost all the Alpine glaciers are predicted to have melted by the end of the century.