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Deep in the state of Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are disappearing and expected to melt away completely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, leaving ice-free peaks for the initial occasion in human history, new research has found.

Age-Old 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 a few as old as the last ice age, according to a report released recently.

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

Worldwide Threat to Ice Formations

Glaciers around the world are under threat amid the climate crisis. A research released in May of this year found that almost forty percent of ice sheets are destined to thaw because of climate warming. If this warming rises by 2.7C, which the planet is presently on course for, as many as seventy-five percent will disappear, leading to sea level rise and large-scale relocation.

Throughout the Western United States, glaciers have shrunk significantly since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the article.

Focus on Key Ice Bodies

The new research focuses on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are among the biggest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying glacier disappearance in the west, the study states.

Research Methods and Findings

Researchers looked at newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and collected specimens to ascertain how long the region was blanketed by ice. They determined that the ice masses have enveloped large areas of the mountain system for far longer than previously known – since before humans inhabited North America.

The state's glaciers reached their peak extents as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and one of the ice bodies experts looked at is believed to have grown seven thousand years ago, earlier than previously believed. The loss of glaciers, for the initial time in recorded history, demonstrates the profound impacts of the climate change, one author of the study said.

Ecological and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the initial ones to see the ice-free peaks,” said the study's lead researcher, the principal investigator. “This has environmental ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Climate change is very abstract, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”