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Far in California’s Sierra Nevada, enormous glaciers are disappearing and expected to melt away entirely by the start of the coming hundred years, leaving summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, recent studies has discovered.

Age-Old Origins of Sierra Range Glaciers

The range's ice sheets are older than earlier understood, tracing back many thousands of years, with some as ancient as the last ice age, according to a report released last week.

“Our pieced-together ice age record indicates that a future ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since known peopling of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the article declares.

Global Threat to Glaciers

Ice masses around the world are at risk during the climate emergency. A research published in the month of May of the current year found that nearly 40% of glaciers are doomed to melt because of global heating. If such heating increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is presently on track for, as many as 75% will disappear, leading to sea level rise and mass displacement.

Throughout the Western United States, ice formations have diminished significantly since they were first documented in the late 19th century, according to the article.

Focus on Key Glaciers

The new research centers on four Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are some of the biggest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability during global heating makes them “indicators” for studying ice loss in the west, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Researchers looked at recently exposed base rock around the glaciers and took samples to ascertain how long the region was blanketed by ice. They determined that the ice masses have enveloped large areas of the mountain system for far longer than earlier believed – since prior to people occupied North America.

California’s glaciers reached their peak extents as early as thirty thousand years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and one of the glaciers researchers studied is thought to have grown seven thousand years ago, earlier than once thought. The disappearance of glaciers, for the first time in recorded history, shows the profound effects of the climate change, one author of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the first to see the ice-free peaks,” said the study's lead researcher, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the American West.”