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Deep in California’s Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are vanishing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, resulting in summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in human history, recent studies has found.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Range Glaciers

The mountain range’s ice sheets are older than earlier understood, dating back many thousands of years, with a few as old as the last ice age, according to an article published last week.

“Our pieced-together glacial history indicates that a coming glacier-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in the history of humankind since known peopling of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the study declares.

Global Threat to Glaciers

Glaciers around the world are under threat amid the climate crisis. A study released in the month of May of this year determined that nearly 40% of glaciers are destined to thaw because of global heating. If such heating increases by 2.7C, which the planet is presently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, leading to sea level rise and large-scale relocation.

Throughout the American west, ice formations have shrunk substantially since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the report.

Concentration on Key Ice Bodies

The new research focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade ice sheets – that are among the biggest and likely oldest in the mountain chain. Their durability during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for examining ice loss in the west, the article notes.

Research Methods and Results

Scientists looked at newly uncovered bedrock around the ice formations and collected specimens to ascertain how long the region was blanketed by ice. They found that the ice masses have enveloped large areas of the range for far longer than previously known – since prior to humans inhabited North America.

California’s glacial sheets attained their peak extents as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the article’s authors wrote, and a particular of the ice bodies researchers looked at is believed to have expanded 7,000 years ago, sooner than once thought. The loss of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, demonstrates the profound effects of the climate crisis, one author of the study said.

Ecological and Symbolic Impact

“We’ll be the initial ones to see the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological ramifications for flora and fauna. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is highly intangible, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re iconic features of the Western U.S..”