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Far in California’s Sierra mountain range, enormous ice formations are vanishing and expected to dissolve entirely by the start of the next century, resulting in summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, new research has found.

Ancient Beginnings of Sierra Range Glaciers

The mountain range’s ice sheets are older than previously known, tracing back tens of thousands of years, with a few as old as the last ice age, according to a report published last week.

“Our reconstructed glacial history indicates that a future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since known peopling of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the article states.

Worldwide Threat to Glaciers

Ice masses globally are at risk during the climate emergency. A research published in the month of May of the current year found 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 presently on course for, as many as seventy-five percent will disappear, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

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

Concentration on Major Glaciers

The new research centers on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are some of the biggest and likely oldest in the mountain chain. Their longevity during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying glacier disappearance in the western region, the article states.

Research Methods and Findings

Scientists looked at recently exposed bedrock around the ice formations and collected specimens to ascertain how long the area was blanketed by glacial ice. They found that the glaciers have enveloped swaths of the range for much longer than previously known – since before humans inhabited North America.

California’s glacial sheets reached their peak extents as long ago as thirty thousand years ago, the article’s authors wrote, and one of the glaciers researchers studied is believed to have grown 7,000 years ago, earlier than once thought. The disappearance of glaciers, for the initial time in human history, shows the profound impacts of the climate crisis, a researcher of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the first to witness the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has environmental implications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Climate change is highly intangible, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”