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Deep in California’s Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are vanishing and projected to dissolve completely by the beginning of the next century, leaving summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, new research has discovered.

Age-Old Origins of Sierra Range Glaciers

The range's glaciers are more ancient than earlier understood, dating back many thousands of years, with some as ancient as the last ice age, according to a report released recently.

“Our pieced-together ice age record shows that a future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is unprecedented in the history of humankind since documented settlement of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the article declares.

Worldwide Threat to Glaciers

Ice masses globally are under threat during the climate emergency. A research published in May of this year determined that nearly 40% of ice sheets are destined to melt because of global heating. If this warming rises by 2.7C, which the planet is presently on course for, as up to 75% will vanish, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Throughout the American west, glaciers have shrunk significantly since they were initially recorded in the late 19th century, according to the article.

Concentration on Key Glaciers

The recent study focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness ice sheets – that are some of the biggest and likely oldest in the range. Their durability during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying ice loss in the western region, the study notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Researchers examined recently exposed bedrock around the glaciers and collected specimens to determine how extensively the region was blanketed by glacial ice. They found that the glaciers have covered swaths of the range for much longer than previously known – since prior to humans occupied North America.

California’s glaciers attained their peak extents as early 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, sooner than once thought. The disappearance of glaciers, for the first time in human history, demonstrates the profound impacts of the climate change, one author of the investigation said.

Environmental 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 environmental ramifications for flora and fauna. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is very abstract, but these ice masses are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the American West.”