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Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive glaciers are vanishing and projected to melt away entirely by the start of the coming hundred years, resulting in ice-free peaks for the initial occasion in recorded human existence, new research has discovered.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The mountain range’s glaciers are more ancient than previously known, tracing back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the most recent glacial period, according to a report released last week.

“Our pieced-together ice age record shows that a future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since documented settlement of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study declares.

Worldwide Threat to Ice Formations

Ice masses globally are under threat during the climate emergency. A research released in the month of May of this year determined that almost forty percent of ice sheets are doomed to melt because of global heating. If such heating increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet 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, ice formations have diminished significantly since they were initially recorded in the 1800s, according to the article.

Concentration on Key Ice Bodies

The recent study focuses on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are some of the largest and likely oldest in the mountain chain. Their durability during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying glacier disappearance in the west, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Findings

Scientists examined recently exposed base rock around the ice formations and collected specimens to determine how extensively the region was blanketed by glacial ice. They found that the ice masses have enveloped swaths of the range for far longer than previously known – since prior to humans inhabited North America.

California’s glaciers attained their peak extents as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and one of the glaciers experts looked at is thought to have grown seven thousand years ago, sooner than once thought. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, shows the dramatic effects of the climate change, a researcher of the investigation said.

Environmental and Symbolic Impact

“We’ll be the initial ones to see 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 iconic features of the Western U.S..”