🔗 Share this article

Far in California’s Sierra Nevada, enormous ice formations are vanishing and expected to dissolve completely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, resulting in summits without glaciers for the first time in recorded human existence, recent studies has discovered.

Ancient Origins of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The mountain range’s glaciers are older than earlier understood, tracing back many thousands of years, with some as ancient as the most recent glacial period, according to an article published last week.

“Our pieced-together ice age record indicates that a future ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since known peopling of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study states.

Global Threat to Glaciers

Glaciers around the world are under threat amid the climate crisis. A research released in May of the current year found that almost forty percent of glaciers are doomed to melt because of climate warming. If such heating increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is currently on course for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, causing ocean level increase and large-scale relocation.

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

Focus on Key Ice Bodies

The recent study centers on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are among the biggest and likely oldest in the range. Their durability amid climate warming makes them “indicators” for examining ice loss in the west, the article states.

Research Methods and Findings

Researchers examined newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and took samples to ascertain how long the region was blanketed by ice. They found that the glaciers have enveloped large areas of the range for far longer than earlier believed – since prior to people inhabited North America.

The state's glacial sheets reached their peak extents as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the article’s authors stated, and a particular of the glaciers experts studied is believed to have grown 7,000 years ago, sooner than once thought. The disappearance of ice formations, for the initial time in recorded history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate crisis, a researcher of the investigation said.

Environmental and Symbolic Impact

“We’ll be the first to witness the glacier-less summits,” said the study's lead researcher, the principal investigator. “This has environmental ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is highly intangible, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re iconic features of the Western U.S..”