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Far in California’s Sierra Nevada, enormous glaciers are disappearing and expected to dissolve completely by the beginning of the next century, resulting in summits without glaciers for the first time in recorded human existence, new research has discovered.

Age-Old Origins of Sierra Nevada Glaciers

The range's ice sheets are older than earlier understood, dating back many thousands of years, with a few as old as the last ice age, according to an article released recently.

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

Global Risk to Ice Formations

Glaciers globally are at risk amid the climate crisis. A research published in the month of May of this year found that nearly 40% of glaciers are destined to thaw because of climate warming. If such heating increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is currently on course for, as up to seventy-five percent will disappear, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

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

Focus on Key Ice Bodies

The new research focuses on four Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness ice sheets – that are among the largest and likely most ancient in the mountain chain. Their durability amid climate warming makes them “indicators” for studying ice loss in the west, the study states.

Research Methods and Results

Researchers examined newly uncovered bedrock around the ice formations and collected specimens to determine how extensively the area was blanketed by ice. They determined that the ice masses have enveloped swaths of the range for much longer than earlier believed – since prior to people occupied North America.

The state's glaciers attained their peak extents as long ago as thirty thousand years ago, the study's researchers stated, and a particular of the glaciers experts studied is believed to have expanded seven thousand years ago, earlier than previously believed. The disappearance of glaciers, for the initial time in human history, demonstrates the dramatic impacts of the climate crisis, one author of the study said.

Environmental and Representational Impact

“We’ll be the first to see the ice-free peaks,” said the study's lead researcher, the study’s lead author. “This has environmental 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 American West.”