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Deep in California’s Sierra mountain range, enormous ice formations are vanishing and projected to dissolve entirely by the start of the coming hundred years, resulting in ice-free peaks for the first time in recorded human existence, new research has discovered.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

The range's glaciers are more ancient than earlier understood, tracing back tens of thousands of years, with a few as ancient as the last ice age, according to an article published recently.

“Our pieced-together glacial history shows that a future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in the history of humankind since documented peopling of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the article declares.

Worldwide Threat to Glaciers

Glaciers around the world are at risk during the climate emergency. A research released in the month of May of this year found that nearly 40% of ice sheets are doomed to thaw because of climate warming. If this warming rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is presently on track for, as many as 75% will disappear, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Throughout the Western United States, glaciers have shrunk substantially since they were first documented in the late 19th century, according to the article.

Focus on Major Glaciers

The recent study focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness ice sheets – that are among the largest and probably most ancient in the mountain chain. Their durability amid global heating makes them “bellwethers” for examining ice loss in the western region, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Researchers looked at newly uncovered base rock around the ice formations and took samples to ascertain how long the area was covered by ice. They found that the ice masses have enveloped large areas of the range for far longer than earlier believed – since prior to people inhabited North America.

California’s glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as long ago as thirty thousand years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and a particular of the ice bodies researchers looked at is believed to have grown 7,000 years ago, earlier than previously believed. The loss of glaciers, for the first time in recorded history, shows the dramatic impacts of the climate crisis, one author of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the first to see the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has environmental ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a symbolic loss. Global warming is very abstract, but these ice masses are concrete. They’re iconic features of the American West.”