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Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive ice formations are vanishing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, leaving ice-free peaks for the initial occasion in recorded human existence, new research has discovered.

Ancient Origins of Sierra Nevada Glaciers

The mountain 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 a report published recently.

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

Worldwide Threat to Ice Formations

Ice masses globally are at risk during the climate emergency. A research published in May of this year found that almost forty percent of glaciers are destined to melt because of climate warming. If this warming increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is presently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, leading to ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Throughout the Western United States, glaciers have diminished substantially since they were initially recorded in the late 19th century, according to the report.

Concentration on Major Glaciers

The recent study focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are some of the largest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability during climate warming makes them “indicators” for studying glacier disappearance in the western region, the study notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Researchers examined newly uncovered bedrock around the glaciers and collected specimens to ascertain how extensively the region was blanketed by ice. They found that the glaciers have enveloped swaths of the mountain system for much longer than previously known – since before humans inhabited North America.

California’s glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and one of the glaciers experts looked at is thought to have expanded seven thousand years ago, sooner than once thought. The loss of ice formations, for the initial time in recorded history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate change, one author of the study said.

Ecological and Representational Consequences

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