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Deep in the state of Sierra mountain range, enormous glaciers are vanishing and expected to dissolve completely by the start of the coming hundred years, resulting in summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in recorded human existence, recent studies has discovered.

Age-Old Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

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 published recently.

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

Worldwide Threat to Ice Formations

Ice masses globally are at risk during the climate emergency. A study released in May of the current year determined that nearly 40% of glaciers are doomed to melt because of global heating. If this warming rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is presently on track for, as many as 75% will disappear, leading to ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Across the American west, glaciers have diminished significantly since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the article.

Concentration on Major Glaciers

The new research centers on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Palisade, Lyell, Maclure and Conness glaciers – that are some of the biggest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability amid climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for examining ice loss in the west, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Findings

Researchers examined newly uncovered base rock around the glaciers and collected specimens to determine how extensively the area was covered by ice. They found that the glaciers have covered large areas of the range for much longer than earlier believed – since before people inhabited North America.

California’s glacial sheets reached their maximum positions as early as 30,000 years ago, the study's researchers stated, and one of the glaciers researchers studied is believed to have grown 7,000 years ago, sooner than previously believed. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in human history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate change, one author of the investigation said.

Ecological and Symbolic Consequences

“We’ll be the first to see 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 symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”