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Deep in California’s Sierra mountain range, enormous ice formations are vanishing and projected to dissolve completely by the beginning of the next century, resulting in summits without glaciers for the initial occasion in recorded human existence, new research has discovered.

Ancient Beginnings of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

The range's ice sheets are more ancient than earlier understood, tracing back tens of thousands of years, with a few as ancient as the last ice age, according to an article released recently.

“Our reconstructed glacial history shows that a future glacier-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since documented peopling of the Americas ~20,000 years ago,” the article states.

Global 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 this year found that almost forty percent of glaciers are doomed to thaw because of climate warming. If this warming increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is presently on course for, as many as 75% will disappear, causing ocean level increase and mass displacement.

Throughout the Western United States, ice formations have shrunk significantly since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the article.

Concentration on Major Glaciers

The recent study focuses on four Sierra Nevada glaciers – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are some of the largest and likely most ancient in the mountain chain. Their longevity amid climate warming makes them “bellwethers” for studying ice loss in the west, the article notes.

Study Techniques and Results

Scientists looked at recently exposed base rock around the glaciers and collected specimens to ascertain how extensively the region was covered by ice. They found that the ice masses have covered swaths of the mountain system for much longer than previously known – since prior to 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 stated, and one of the ice bodies experts studied is believed to have expanded seven thousand years ago, earlier than once thought. The loss of glaciers, for the first time in recorded history, demonstrates the profound impacts of the climate crisis, a researcher of the investigation said.

Environmental and Representational Impact

“We’ll be the first to see the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the study’s lead author. “This has environmental implications for flora and fauna. And it’s a representational decline. Climate change is very abstract, but these ice masses are tangible. They’re iconic features of the American West.”