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Deep in the state of Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are disappearing and expected to dissolve entirely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, leaving summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, new research has found.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The range's glaciers are older than previously known, tracing back many thousands of years, with a few as ancient as the last ice age, according to a report released recently.

“Our reconstructed 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.

Worldwide Risk to Ice Formations

Glaciers globally are at risk amid the climate crisis. A study published in the month of May of this year determined that almost forty percent of ice sheets are doomed to thaw because of global heating. If such heating rises by 2.7C, which the world is presently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, causing sea level rise and large-scale relocation.

Across the American west, glaciers have diminished significantly since they were initially recorded in the 1800s, according to the report.

Focus on Key Ice Bodies

The recent study focuses on several 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 global heating makes them “bellwethers” for studying glacier disappearance in the western region, the study notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Scientists looked at newly uncovered bedrock around the ice formations and collected specimens to determine how extensively the region was covered by ice. They determined that the glaciers have covered swaths of the range for far longer than previously known – since before people inhabited North America.

The state's glaciers reached their peak extents as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and a particular of the glaciers experts studied is thought to have grown seven thousand years ago, sooner than once thought. The loss of glaciers, for the initial time in human history, shows the profound impacts of the climate change, a researcher of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Impact

“We’ll be the initial ones to witness the glacier-less summits,” said the study's lead researcher, the study’s lead author. “This has environmental ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is very abstract, but these ice masses are tangible. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”