Glacier Thawing Is Set to Ice-Free Summits in California for First Instance in Human History

Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive ice formations are vanishing and expected to melt away entirely by the start of the next century, leaving summits without glaciers for the first time in human history, recent studies has found.

Age-Old Origins of Sierra Nevada Ice Masses

The range's ice sheets are more ancient than earlier understood, tracing back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to a report published last week.

“Our reconstructed ice age record shows that a coming ice-free Sierra Nevada is without precedent in human history since known peopling of the Americas around twenty thousand years ago,” the study states.

Global Threat to Glaciers

Ice masses globally are under threat amid the climate crisis. A research published in the month of May of the current year found that almost forty percent of ice sheets are destined to melt because of global heating. If this warming increases by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which the planet is currently on track for, as many as seventy-five percent will disappear, leading to sea level rise and large-scale relocation.

Throughout the Western United States, ice formations have diminished substantially since they were first documented in the 1800s, according to the report.

Concentration on Major Ice Bodies

The new research centers on several Sierra Nevada glacial masses – the Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade ice sheets – that are among the biggest and probably most ancient in the range. Their durability amid global heating makes them “bellwethers” for examining glacier disappearance in the west, the article states.

Research Methods and Results

Scientists examined recently exposed base rock around the ice formations and collected specimens to determine how long the region was covered by glacial ice. They determined that the ice masses have enveloped swaths of the range for much longer than earlier believed – since before people inhabited North America.

California’s glaciers reached their peak extents as long ago as thirty thousand years ago, the study's researchers wrote, and a particular of the glaciers researchers studied is thought to have grown seven thousand years ago, earlier than previously believed. The loss of ice formations, for the first time in human history, shows the dramatic impacts of the climate change, one author of the study said.

Environmental and Representational Consequences

“We’ll be the first to witness 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. Climate change is very abstract, but these glaciers are tangible. They’re symbolic elements of the Western U.S..”