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Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, enormous glaciers are disappearing and expected to dissolve entirely by the beginning of the next century, leaving summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in human history, recent studies has discovered.

Age-Old Origins of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

The range's glaciers are more ancient than earlier understood, tracing back many thousands of years, with a few as old as the most recent glacial period, according to an article published recently.

“Our reconstructed glacial history indicates that a future ice-free Sierra Nevada is unprecedented in human history since documented settlement of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study states.

Global Risk to Glaciers

Ice masses globally are at risk amid the climate crisis. A research published in the month of May of the current year determined that nearly 40% of ice sheets are destined to melt 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, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Across the American west, ice formations have diminished significantly since they were first documented in the late 19th century, according to the report.

Focus on Key Ice Bodies

The recent study centers on four Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are some of the biggest and probably oldest in the mountain chain. Their durability during global heating makes them “indicators” for examining glacier disappearance in the western region, the study notes.

Research Methods and Results

Scientists examined newly uncovered bedrock around the glaciers and collected specimens to determine how extensively the area was blanketed by glacial ice. They determined that the glaciers have enveloped swaths of the mountain system for much longer than previously known – since before people inhabited North America.

The state's glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as long ago as thirty thousand years ago, the article’s authors wrote, and a particular of the glaciers experts looked at is believed to have expanded seven thousand years ago, earlier than once thought. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in recorded history, demonstrates the profound effects of the climate crisis, one author of the study said.

Ecological and Symbolic Consequences

“We’ll be the initial ones to witness the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the principal investigator. “This has environmental implications for flora and fauna. And it’s a symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”