🔗 Share this article

Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, enormous ice formations are disappearing and projected to dissolve entirely by the start of the next century, leaving summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in human history, new research has found.

Ancient Beginnings of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The mountain range’s glaciers are more ancient than earlier understood, dating back many thousands of years, with some as old as the most recent glacial period, according to a report released recently.

“Our reconstructed glacial history shows that a future ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in the history of humankind since known peopling of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study declares.

Global Risk to Glaciers

Ice masses globally are under threat during the climate crisis. A study released in May of the current year found that almost forty percent of glaciers are doomed to thaw because of climate warming. If this warming rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is presently on track for, as up to seventy-five percent will vanish, leading to sea level rise and mass displacement.

Across the American west, ice formations have shrunk substantially since they were first documented in the late 19th century, according to the report.

Concentration on Key Glaciers

The new research focuses on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness ice sheets – that are some of the largest and probably oldest in the range. Their longevity during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying glacier disappearance in the western region, the article states.

Research Methods and Results

Researchers looked at newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and took samples to determine how long the area was blanketed by glacial ice. They determined that the glaciers have covered swaths of the range for much longer than earlier believed – since before humans occupied North America.

California’s glaciers attained their maximum positions as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the article’s authors stated, and one of the ice bodies researchers looked at is believed to have expanded seven thousand years ago, earlier than previously believed. The loss of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, demonstrates the profound effects of the climate crisis, a researcher of the study said.

Ecological and Representational Consequences

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