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Far in California’s Sierra Nevada, enormous glaciers are vanishing and expected to dissolve entirely by the start of the coming hundred years, resulting in summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in human history, new research has found.

Ancient Origins of Sierra Nevada Glaciers

The mountain range’s ice sheets are older than earlier understood, tracing back many thousands of years, with a few as old as the last ice age, according to a report published recently.

“Our reconstructed ice age record indicates that a future glacier-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 Glaciers

Ice masses around the world are under threat amid the climate crisis. A study published in the month of May of the current year determined that nearly 40% of ice sheets are destined to thaw because of global heating. If such heating increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is presently on course for, as many as 75% will disappear, leading to ocean level increase and large-scale relocation.

Throughout the American west, glaciers have diminished substantially since they were initially recorded in the 1800s, according to the article.

Concentration on Key Glaciers

The new research centers on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade ice sheets – that are some of the biggest and likely most ancient in the mountain chain. Their durability amid climate warming makes them “indicators” for studying ice loss in the west, the article states.

Research Methods and Findings

Scientists looked at newly uncovered bedrock around the glaciers and collected specimens to determine how extensively the area was blanketed by glacial ice. They found that the glaciers have covered large areas of the mountain system for far longer than earlier believed – since prior to people occupied North America.

California’s glacial sheets reached their maximum positions as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and a particular of the glaciers researchers looked at is thought to have expanded seven thousand years ago, sooner than previously believed. The loss of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate crisis, one author of the investigation said.

Ecological and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the initial ones to witness the ice-free peaks,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”