Glacier Thawing Will Lead to Glacier-Less Peaks in California for First Instance in Recorded History

Deep in the state of Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are vanishing and expected to dissolve completely by the beginning of the coming hundred years, leaving summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in human history, new research has found.

Ancient Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Glaciers

The range's ice sheets are more ancient than earlier understood, dating back many thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to a report released recently.

“Our reconstructed ice age record indicates that a future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since documented settlement of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study declares.

Global Risk to Glaciers

Ice masses around the world are under threat amid the climate crisis. A study released in the month of May of the current year determined that nearly 40% of glaciers are doomed to thaw because of climate warming. If this warming rises by 2.7C, which the planet is presently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will disappear, causing sea level rise and large-scale relocation.

Across the American west, glaciers have diminished substantially since they were first documented in the late 19th century, according to the article.

Focus on Major Glaciers

The recent study focuses on four Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness ice sheets – that are some of the biggest and probably oldest in the mountain chain. Their durability amid global heating makes them “bellwethers” for examining ice loss in the western region, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Scientists looked at recently exposed base rock around the ice formations and collected specimens to ascertain how long the area was blanketed by ice. They found that the ice masses have covered large areas of the mountain system for far longer than earlier believed – since prior to humans occupied North America.

The state's glaciers attained their peak extents as early as thirty thousand years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and a particular of the glaciers researchers studied is thought to have expanded 7,000 years ago, sooner than once thought. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in human history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate change, one author of the study said.

Ecological and Symbolic Consequences

“We’ll be the initial ones to see the ice-free peaks,” said Andrew Jones, 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 tangible. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”