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Deep in the state of Sierra mountain range, enormous glaciers are vanishing and expected to melt away completely by the beginning of the next century, leaving summits without glaciers for the first time in recorded human existence, recent studies has discovered.

Ancient Origins of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

The mountain range’s glaciers are more ancient than earlier understood, tracing back many thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to a report published recently.

“Our pieced-together ice age record shows that a coming ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since documented peopling of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the article declares.

Global Threat to Ice Formations

Glaciers globally are at risk during the climate emergency. A research released in the month of May of the current year determined that almost forty percent of ice sheets are doomed to melt because of climate warming. If this warming increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is presently on course for, as up to 75% will disappear, leading to ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Across the American west, ice formations have shrunk substantially since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the report.

Concentration on Major Ice Bodies

The recent study centers on four Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are some of the largest and probably oldest in the mountain chain. Their durability amid climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying glacier disappearance in the west, the study notes.

Research Methods and Findings

Researchers looked at newly uncovered bedrock around the glaciers and collected specimens to determine how long the area was blanketed by ice. They found that the glaciers have covered swaths of the mountain system for much longer than previously known – since prior to people inhabited North America.

The state's glaciers attained their peak extents as early as 30,000 years ago, the article’s authors wrote, and one of the ice bodies researchers looked at is believed to have grown 7,000 years ago, earlier than once thought. The loss of glaciers, for the initial time in recorded history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate crisis, one author of the investigation said.

Ecological and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the first to see the glacier-less summits,” said the study's lead researcher, the study’s lead author. “This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a representational decline. Global warming is very abstract, but these ice masses are tangible. They’re iconic features of the American West.”