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Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive ice formations are disappearing and projected to melt away entirely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, leaving ice-free peaks for the first time in recorded human existence, new research has found.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

The range's ice sheets are more ancient 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 future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is unprecedented in human history since known peopling of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the study declares.

Global Threat to Glaciers

Glaciers globally are at risk during the climate crisis. A study published in May of the current year determined that almost forty percent of glaciers are doomed to melt because of global heating. If this warming rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is presently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, causing sea level rise and mass displacement.

Across the American west, glaciers have shrunk substantially since they were first documented in the late 19th century, according to the report.

Concentration on Major Ice Bodies

The new research centers on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are some of the biggest and likely oldest in the range. Their durability during global heating makes them “bellwethers” for examining ice loss in the west, the article states.

Research Methods and Findings

Scientists examined newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and took samples to determine how extensively the area was covered by glacial ice. They found that the glaciers have covered swaths of the range for far longer than previously known – since before people occupied North America.

California’s glacial sheets attained their peak extents as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the article’s authors 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 glaciers, for the first time in human history, shows the profound effects of the climate crisis, a researcher of the study said.

Ecological and Representational Impact

“We’ll be the initial ones to witness the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are tangible. They’re iconic features of the Western U.S..”