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Far in California’s Sierra mountain range, enormous glaciers are disappearing and projected to melt away entirely by the start of the coming hundred years, leaving summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in recorded human existence, new research has found.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Range Ice Masses

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

“Our pieced-together glacial history indicates that a coming ice-free Sierra Nevada is unprecedented in human history since documented settlement of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the article declares.

Global Risk to Ice Formations

Glaciers around the world are at risk during the climate emergency. A research released in May of this year determined that nearly 40% of ice sheets are doomed to thaw because of climate warming. If such heating increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is currently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, leading to ocean level increase and mass displacement.

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

Focus on Key Glaciers

The new research focuses on four Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade ice sheets – that are among the biggest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying ice loss in the western region, the article states.

Study Techniques and Findings

Researchers looked at newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and collected specimens to ascertain how extensively the region was blanketed by ice. They determined that the ice masses have covered large areas of the mountain system for far longer than earlier believed – since prior to humans inhabited North America.

The state's glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and one of the ice bodies experts looked at is believed to have grown 7,000 years ago, sooner than once thought. The loss of glaciers, for the first time in human history, shows the profound impacts of the climate change, one author of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Impact

“We’ll be the first to witness the glacier-less summits,” said the study's lead researcher, the principal investigator. “This has environmental ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is highly intangible, but these glaciers are tangible. They’re iconic features of the Western U.S..”