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Deep in California’s Sierra mountain range, enormous glaciers are disappearing and projected to melt away entirely by the start of the next century, leaving ice-free peaks for the first time in recorded human existence, recent studies has found.

Ancient Beginnings of Sierra Range Ice Masses

The range's ice sheets are older than previously known, dating back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to a report released last week.

“Our pieced-together ice age record indicates that a coming ice-free Sierra Nevada is unprecedented in human history since known settlement of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the article states.

Global Risk to Ice Formations

Ice masses globally are under threat amid the climate emergency. A study released in May of this year found that nearly 40% of ice sheets are doomed to melt because of climate warming. If this warming rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is currently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will disappear, leading to sea level rise and mass displacement.

Across the American west, glaciers have diminished substantially since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the article.

Focus 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 biggest and probably most ancient in the mountain chain. Their longevity during climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for examining glacier disappearance in the western region, the study states.

Study Techniques and Results

Scientists examined recently exposed bedrock around the ice formations and collected specimens to ascertain how extensively the region was covered by ice. They determined that the ice masses have enveloped swaths of the mountain system for far longer than earlier believed – since before people inhabited North America.

California’s glaciers attained their peak extents as long ago as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and one of the ice bodies researchers looked at is thought to have expanded 7,000 years ago, earlier than previously believed. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in human history, demonstrates the dramatic impacts of the climate change, a researcher of the study said.

Environmental and Symbolic Impact

“We’ll be the first to see the ice-free peaks,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has environmental implications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is very abstract, but these glaciers are tangible. They’re iconic features of the American West.”