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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 coming hundred years, leaving ice-free peaks for the initial occasion in human history, recent studies has discovered.

Age-Old Origins of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The mountain range’s glaciers are older than earlier understood, dating back tens of thousands of years, with a few as old as the most recent glacial period, according to a report released last week.

“Our reconstructed ice age record indicates that a coming glacier-free Sierra Nevada is unprecedented in human history since known settlement of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study declares.

Worldwide Risk to Glaciers

Glaciers around the world are at risk amid the climate emergency. A research released in the month of May of the current year determined that nearly 40% of glaciers are doomed to melt because of global heating. If this warming rises by 2.7C, which the planet is currently on track for, as up to seventy-five percent will vanish, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Across the Western United States, glaciers have shrunk significantly since they were initially recorded in the late 19th century, according to the article.

Concentration on Major Ice Bodies

The new research centers on four Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are among the biggest and probably oldest in the mountain chain. Their durability amid global heating makes them “bellwethers” for studying ice loss in the west, the article states.

Research Methods and Results

Scientists examined recently exposed base rock around the glaciers and collected specimens to determine how extensively the area was covered by ice. They found that the glaciers have enveloped swaths of the range for far longer than previously known – since prior to humans occupied North America.

California’s glaciers attained their maximum positions as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and a particular of the glaciers experts studied is thought to have grown 7,000 years ago, earlier than once thought. The disappearance of glaciers, for the first time in human history, demonstrates the dramatic impacts of the climate change, one author of the study said.

Ecological and Symbolic 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 symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are concrete. They’re iconic features of the Western U.S..”