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Far in the state of Sierra Nevada, massive glaciers are vanishing and expected to dissolve entirely by the start of the next century, leaving summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, recent studies 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 a few as ancient as the most recent glacial period, according to a report released last week.

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

Worldwide Threat to Ice Formations

Ice masses around the world are at risk amid the climate crisis. A research released in the month of May of the current year found that almost forty percent of ice sheets are destined to thaw because of global heating. If such heating rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is presently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will vanish, causing sea level rise and mass displacement.

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

Focus on Key Ice Bodies

The recent study centers on several Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness ice sheets – that are some of the largest and probably most ancient in the mountain chain. Their durability amid global heating makes them “indicators” for studying ice loss in the west, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Researchers examined newly uncovered base rock around the ice formations and took samples to ascertain how extensively the region was blanketed by ice. They found that the glaciers have enveloped large areas of the range for far longer than previously known – since prior to humans inhabited North America.

California’s glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as early as thirty thousand years ago, the article’s authors wrote, and a particular of the ice bodies researchers studied is thought to have grown 7,000 years ago, earlier than once thought. The loss of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, shows the dramatic effects of the climate crisis, one author of the study said.

Environmental and Representational Impact

“We’ll be the initial ones to witness the ice-free peaks,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Climate change is highly intangible, but these ice masses are tangible. They’re iconic features of the Western U.S..”