Far in California’s Sierra mountain range, massive glaciers are vanishing and expected to melt away completely by the beginning of the next century, resulting in ice-free peaks for the initial occasion in human history, recent studies has found.
Age-Old Origins of Sierra Range Glaciers
The range's ice sheets are more ancient than earlier understood, dating back many thousands of years, with a few as old as the last ice age, according to a report published last week.
“Our reconstructed glacial history indicates that a future ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since known peopling of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study declares.
Worldwide Risk to Glaciers
Ice masses around the world are at risk amid the climate emergency. A study published in the month of May of the current year found that almost forty percent of glaciers are destined to melt because of climate warming. If this warming rises by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the world is currently on course for, as many as seventy-five percent will disappear, causing ocean level increase and large-scale relocation.
Across the Western United States, glaciers have diminished substantially since they were initially recorded in the late 19th century, according to the report.
Focus on Major Glaciers
The recent study centers on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade glaciers – that are some of the largest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability during global heating makes them “indicators” for studying ice loss in the western region, the article states.
Research Methods and Results
Researchers examined newly uncovered base rock around the ice formations and took samples to determine how long the region was blanketed by ice. They found that the ice masses have covered large areas of the range for much longer than previously known – since before humans occupied North America.
California’s glacial sheets attained their maximum positions as early as 30,000 years ago, the article’s authors wrote, and one of the glaciers researchers studied is believed to have grown seven thousand years ago, earlier than once thought. The disappearance of ice formations, for the first time in human history, demonstrates the dramatic effects of the climate crisis, one author of the investigation said.
Environmental and Symbolic Impact
“We’ll be the first to witness the glacier-less summits,” said Andrew Jones, the principal investigator. “This has ecological ramifications for plants and animals. And it’s a symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these glaciers are concrete. They’re symbolic elements of the American West.”
