🔗 Share this article

Deep in the state of Sierra Nevada, enormous glaciers are vanishing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, resulting in ice-free peaks for the first time in human history, new research has discovered.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

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

“Our reconstructed ice age record indicates that a future ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in the history of humankind since known settlement of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the article states.

Global Risk to Ice Formations

Glaciers around the world are at risk during the climate crisis. A study released in the month of May of this year found that nearly 40% of glaciers are destined to melt because of climate warming. If such heating rises by 2.7C, which the planet is currently 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 diminished significantly since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the report.

Concentration on Major Ice Bodies

The recent study centers on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are among the largest and probably oldest in the range. Their durability during global heating makes them “bellwethers” for examining glacier disappearance in the west, the article states.

Research Methods and Findings

Researchers looked at recently exposed base rock around the ice formations and took samples to ascertain how extensively the area was blanketed by ice. They found that the glaciers have covered swaths of the range for far longer than earlier believed – since before people occupied North America.

California’s glaciers reached their peak extents as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and one of the glaciers researchers studied is thought to have grown 7,000 years ago, sooner than previously believed. The loss of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, shows the dramatic effects of the climate change, one author of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the first to witness the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the principal investigator. “This has ecological ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is very abstract, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”