🔗 Share this article

Far in the state of Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are disappearing and projected to dissolve entirely by the beginning of the next century, resulting in ice-free peaks for the initial occasion in recorded human existence, recent studies has found.

Ancient Beginnings of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The mountain range’s ice sheets are more ancient than earlier understood, tracing back tens of thousands of years, with some as ancient as the last ice age, according to a report released recently.

“Our pieced-together glacial history indicates that a coming ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since known peopling of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the study states.

Global Risk to Glaciers

Glaciers globally are under threat amid the climate crisis. A study published in the month of May of this year found that almost forty percent of glaciers are destined to melt because of global heating. If such heating rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is currently on course for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, causing sea level rise and mass displacement.

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

Focus on Key Glaciers

The new research focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade ice sheets – that are some of the biggest and probably most ancient in the mountain chain. Their durability during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for examining glacier disappearance in the west, the article states.

Study Techniques and Results

Scientists examined newly uncovered bedrock around the ice formations and took samples to ascertain how long the region was blanketed by ice. They found that the ice masses have enveloped swaths of the mountain system for much longer than earlier believed – since before humans occupied North America.

California’s glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and one of the glaciers experts studied is believed to have expanded 7,000 years ago, sooner than once thought. The disappearance of glaciers, for the initial time in human history, demonstrates the profound impacts of the climate change, one author of the investigation said.

Ecological and Symbolic Consequences

“We’ll be the first to see the glacier-less summits,” said the study's lead researcher, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are tangible. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”