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Deep in California’s Sierra mountain range, enormous glaciers are disappearing and expected to dissolve completely by the start of the coming hundred years, resulting in summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, recent studies has discovered.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Glaciers

The mountain range’s glaciers are older than previously known, dating back many thousands of years, with some as ancient as the most recent glacial period, according to an article published recently.

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

Worldwide Threat to Glaciers

Ice masses globally are at risk amid the climate emergency. A research released in the month of May of this year found that almost forty percent of ice sheets are destined to melt because of global heating. If this warming rises by 2.7C, which the world is presently on track for, as up to seventy-five percent will disappear, causing sea level rise and mass displacement.

Throughout the American west, ice formations have shrunk substantially since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the article.

Focus on Major Ice Bodies

The recent study focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are some of the largest and probably oldest in the mountain chain. Their longevity amid global heating makes them “bellwethers” for examining glacier disappearance in the west, the article notes.

Research Methods and Findings

Researchers examined newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and collected specimens to ascertain how long the region was covered by ice. They determined that the glaciers have covered swaths of the mountain system for much longer than earlier believed – since before people occupied North America.

The state's glacial sheets reached their peak extents as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and one of the glaciers researchers looked at is believed to have expanded seven thousand years ago, earlier than previously believed. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, demonstrates the profound impacts of the climate crisis, a researcher of the investigation said.

Ecological and Symbolic Impact

“We’ll be the first to see the ice-free peaks,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is highly intangible, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”