By: Shane Lambert
Original publication date: August 6th, 2026
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| AI-generated image (ChatGPT) |
Climate Change, Global Warming, Snowmelt, and Evaporation
Climate change, according to NASA, "is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates." The Earth's climate has changed many times in the planet's history, but in our time, the climate is changing rapidly.
Modern climate change has been linked to the burning of fossil fuels and natural gas. Both processes release gases into the atmosphere that trap heat that would otherwise escape into outer space.
It's my opinion that the current period of climate change will lead to mass human death. There is already substantial evidence of the deadly effects of extreme heat.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "The number of people exposed to extreme heat is growing exponentially due to climate change in all world regions. Heat-related mortality for people over 65 years of age increased by approximately 85% between 2000–2004 and 2017–2021."
The WHO further reports, "Between 2000–2019 studies show approximately 489 000 heat-related deaths occur each year, with 45% of these in Asia and 36% in Europe."
Source: World Health Organization, Heat and health, published July 31, 2026. Link confirmed accessible August 5, 2026.
I do wonder how many people die from climate change without really entering the stats, noting that the world is full of destitute people whose deaths do not make headlines or enter too many studies. Yet, the focus and scope of this blog is much narrower: I address true crime topics with a focus on missing people.
So what does climate change have to do with that topic?
One consequence of global warming is particularly relevant to the topic of missing people. People who are missing have been revealed by the changes in the environment that previously concealed them.
For example, bodies of water can lose enormous amounts of water during prolonged periods of heat and drought. As lake and reservoir levels fall, areas that have been underwater for years or even decades can become exposed. Missing people have been found due to dried-up lakes. Similarly, people lost in snow or ice have been found due to increased melting.
Climate Change: Instantiation Challenges
The topic of climate change and establishing its relationship to known phenomena is not one without its challenges. All writers who address climate change and claim that it has led to a specific event face a burden of proof. How can any particular event be attributed to the effects of climate change when the said event is not particular to the current global warming era?
This debate sometimes takes place with regard to the forest fires that have consumed the summer headlines in the northern hemisphere of 2026. Anyone who claims that a particular forest fire is happening or did happen because of global warming can’t conclusively make that claim. The instantiation of any particular forest fire as being due to global warming is too difficult a matter to prove to the standards of scientific skepticism. But a more general claim, that forest fires have increased because of global warming, is, in my view, a defensible position.
The same could be said of missing people who are discovered in scenarios where climate change might be in the chain of events leading to their discovery. In listing ten missing people who I claim were found due to climate change, I offer an opinion piece only. On that matter, I will acknowledge bias: I do believe that climate change is real, pervasive, and that events related to increased heat should be attributed to the effects of climate change. But whether some of the missing people, who I think were found because of climate change, would have been found in a parallel universe without climate change isn't something that can be claimed.
1. Duncan MacPherson: Found After Snowmelt
Duncan MacPherson, whose story has its own entry on this blog, was a Canadian who went missing while snowboarding in Austria in 1989. He was found deceased about 14 years later in the same skiing area where he was last seen.
The Austrian public broadcaster ORF, in its coverage of the MacPherson case, stated: "During the record-breaking heatwave of 2003, a body was discovered on a ski slope, complete with snowboard equipment" (this quote is based on Google's translation of the original German source). Identification found in the jacket pocket confirmed that the body was MacPherson's.
Source: ORF, True Stories: Death on the Glacier – The Duncan MacPherson File. Accessed August 5, 2026.
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| AI-generated. Cartoon characteristic selected to prevent mistaking for a real image. ChatGPT image. |
This has to do with global warming, in my opinion, because MacPherson's body had been concealed in the glacier and was only recovered during what ORF describes as a "record-breaking heatwave." Such conditions would contribute to increased melting. But this is also where the problem of instantiation that I previously discussed becomes relevant.
Global warming is a global, long-term phenomenon, while a particular heatwave is a regional and short-term event. Attributing any one period of unusually high temperatures to global warming therefore requires evidence beyond the existence of the heatwave itself. At the same time, global warming can alter the background conditions in which such extreme heat occurs, making it reasonable to investigate whether it formed part of the chain of events that ultimately exposed MacPherson's remains.
More generally, glaciers and long-lasting snow and ice are retreating in many parts of the world, increasing the likelihood that people who have been concealed beneath them for years or decades will eventually be found.
It is this increased likelihood that fuels my argument that global warming can be related to the recovery of missing people. My opinion is certainly not unique.
I won't revisit that causal question with every case on this list. Rather, my position throughout is that the recovery of these people has something substantial to do with the current era of climate change because climate change can alter the environments that have concealed missing people.
2, 3, 4, and 5: Missing People Who Were at the Bottom of Lake Mead
AI-generated. The prompt given to ChatGPT was to show two clandestine individuals dumping a barrel into a lake by moonlight.
Snow melts when it’s warm enough. Likewise, water evaporates when it’s hot enough.
People lost to glaciers, ski hills, or avalanches may be more likely to be found when the snow and ice concealing them melt. Likewise, people at the bottom of lakes may become easier to find when falling water levels expose areas that were previously submerged.
A fully dried-out lake provides a complete look at what was previously the lake's floor. But a lake doesn't have to dry out completely to reveal what it has been hiding. As the shoreline recedes, portions of the lakebed that were previously underwater become exposed. Furthermore, the water becomes shallower even where not completely exposed, enabling anyone on the surface to see the floor with greater ease.
Lake Mead, which straddles Nevada and Arizona in the United States, made headlines in 2022 as its water level dramatically declined. The receding water exposed human remains belonging to four people. One of them was an unidentified homicide victim whose remains were discovered inside a barrel near Hemenway Harbor on May 1, 2022.
The man had evidence supporting that he may have been shot, and investigators believe his death occurred sometime between the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s. Whoever placed his body inside the barrel and deposited it in Lake Mead apparently succeeded in concealing him for decades. It was the retreating water that finally exposed the barrel.
Matching this John Doe to a missing-person case is a meaningful task that readers interested in unidentified-person cases can participate in.
Lake Mead Barrel John Doe
Identity: Unknown
Sex: Male
Estimated time of death: Mid-to-late 1970s to early 1980s
Discovery: May 1, 2022
Location: Hemenway Harbor, Lake Mead, Nevada
Cause of death: Gunshot wound
Manner of death: Homicide
Clothing/evidence: Shoes sold by Kmart and manufactured in the mid-to-late 1970s
Clark County case: 2022-02725
If you are looking through missing-person cases for a possible match, you would be looking for a male who disappeared sometime around the 1970s or early 1980s. Nevada and Arizona are obvious places to begin narrowing the search, but there is no way to assume that this John Doe lived in either state before his death. He could have travelled to the area or been brought there after he was killed.
Admittedly, that leaves an enormous field of possible missing-person cases. Investigators do, however, have DNA from the remains. It may ultimately be DNA, potentially through a match involving a biological relative, that gives this man his name back.
The receding waters of Lake Mead revealed three other people in 2022. Thomas Erndt disappeared after entering Lake Mead for a swim in 2002; although he was presumed to have drowned, his official cause and manner of death remain undetermined. Donald P. Smith had drowned in Lake Mead in 1974, with his death classified as accidental. Claude Russell Pensinger had been missing since 1998, and his cause and manner of death remain undetermined.
These four cases illustrate why a changing physical environment can matter to missing-person investigations. Lake Mead did not have to disappear completely. It only had to recede far enough to expose places that had previously been underwater. People who had been concealed by the lake for years—and, in some cases, decades—could then be found.
Source: Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner, Lake Mead human-remains cases. Accessed August 5, 2026.
6: Lake Powell — Submerged Truck with Human Remains
Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona border, provides another example of receding water potentially revealing evidence connected to a missing person. In September 2025, a pickup truck was spotted just beneath the water near Lone Rock Beach. Authorities recovered the vehicle and found human remains inside.
The truck belonged to a 54-year-old man who had been missing since December 2023. At the time the discovery was initially reported, however, authorities had not yet formally identified the human remains as belonging to the missing man. According to the Kane County Sheriff's Office, Lake Powell had fallen approximately 20 feet (about six metres) between the man's disappearance and the discovery of the vehicle. The falling water level brought the submerged truck close enough to the surface to be seen.
7 and 8: Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin — Tsanfleuron Glacier, Switzerland
Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin disappeared in the Swiss Alps on August 15, 1942. At the time of this disappearance, Marcelin was 40 years old, and Francine was 37. Married, the couple had travelled into the mountains and simply never returned. For the next 75 years, what happened to them remained unresolved.
In July 2017, two bodies and personal belongings were discovered on the Tsanfleuron Glacier. DNA testing formally identified the remains as the missing husband and wife.
This case has an unusually direct connection to the subject of this article. In its announcement identifying the couple, the Valais Cantonal Police explained that people who have been missing for decades are regularly being released by shrinking glaciers as a result of climate change.
“People who have been missing for several decades are regularly being released by the shrinking glaciers as a result of climate change.”
Original German (ChatGPT relied on for translation):
“Personen, die seit mehreren Jahrzehnten als vermisst gelten, werden regelmässig seit dem Klimawandel durch die schwindenden Gletscher frei gegeben.”
The Dumoulins therefore provide two particularly strong examples of the phenomenon I'm discussing. Climate change can physically alter an environment that has concealed missing people for decades. In this case, a shrinking glacier eventually gave up two people who had been missing since the Second World War.
Source: Valais Cantonal Police, Wallis/Glacier de Tsanfleuron: The Glacier Released a Couple Missing Since 1942, published July 19, 2017. Source originally published in German; English descriptions above are based on translation. Accessed August 6, 2026.
9: William "Bill" Stampfl — Huascarán, Peru
William "Bill" Stampfl was a 58-year-old American mountaineer who disappeared while attempting to climb Huascarán, the highest mountain in Peru. On June 24, 2002, an avalanche swept down the mountain while Stampfl and his climbing partners, Matthew Richardson and Steve Erskine, were attempting to reach the summit. Erskine's body was recovered, but Stampfl and Richardson remained missing.
Twenty-two years later, Stampfl emerged from the ice. According to Sarah Kuta, writing for Smithsonian Magazine, "as warming temperatures melt the mountain’s glaciers, Stampfl’s body has emerged from the ice."
American mountaineers Ryan Cooper and Wesley Waren discovered Stampfl's mummified remains on June 27, 2024, at an elevation of roughly 17,060 feet. His body was still wearing a helmet, boots, jacket and wedding ring. A fanny pack attached to his remains contained personal belongings including sunglasses, cash, a camera, his passport and an identification card.
Stampfl's case provides a particularly strong example for this list because the changing environment that concealed him is well documented. Kuta reports that the Cordillera Blanca, the Peruvian mountain range that includes Huascarán, has lost 27 percent of its ice sheet over the previous 50 years. As the ice retreated, a man who had been missing for more than two decades became exposed on the surface.
Stampfl's remains were recovered on July 5, 2024, and his family planned to have them cremated and returned to the United States. His climbing partner Matthew Richardson remained missing at the time of the Smithsonian report.
Source: Sarah Kuta, "Melting Ice Reveals Body of American Mountaineer Missing for 22 Years in the Peruvian Andes," Smithsonian Magazine, July 11, 2024. Accessed August 6, 2026.
10: Unidentified German Mountaineer — Theodul Glacier, Switzerland
In 1986, a German mountaineer disappeared while hiking in the Swiss Alps. For nearly four decades, his fate remained unknown. Then, in July 2023, human remains emerged from the ice near Switzerland's famous Matterhorn.
According to Kelly Kasulis Cho, writing for The Washington Post, "The remains of a German mountaineer who had been missing for almost four decades were discovered in the melting ice just off the Matterhorn mountain earlier this month, Swiss police said Friday."
The climber had been missing for approximately 36 years when his remains were discovered. His name was not publicly released in the report. Like several other cases on this list, however, his recovery illustrates how melting glaciers can reveal people who disappeared decades earlier and whose remains had been concealed by ice.
The case also fits into the broader pattern discussed throughout this article. A glacier can preserve and conceal a missing person for decades, but the same person may eventually become visible as that glacier retreats. In this case, a disappearance dating back to the 1980s was finally resolved when the mountain environment that had hidden the climber changed around him.
Source: Kelly Kasulis Cho, "Remains of missing climber found 36 years later in melting Alps glacier," The Washington Post, July 30, 2023. Accessed August 6, 2026.
Honourable Mention
Wildfires may also lead indirectly to the discovery of missing people. In August 2006, an Associated Press report published by HeraldNet described a fire crew clearing brush near the Tripod wildfire in north-central Washington when they discovered scattered human remains in a forested area. Authorities believed the remains belonged to a local man who had disappeared in July 2001, although his identity had not yet been confirmed when the article was published. This case doesn't make my main list because the wildfire itself didn't necessarily expose the remains. Rather, the fire brought crews into the area to clear vegetation, and that work led to the discovery.
Source: Associated Press, Fire crew finds human remains, published by HeraldNet, August 7, 2006. Accessed August 5, 2026.
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