California’s Sierra Nevada glaciers are some of the largest and oldest in the range. They are on the cusp of becoming completely extinct, a first in the region’s history. Those same features that define the American West have been formed over tens of thousands of years. Now, due to the impacts of climate change, they are melting at an alarming rate. Researchers estimate that these glaciers will disappear by the early years of the next century. Over the next hundred years, for perhaps the first time in human history, those ice-free peaks will be newly exposed.
Since the late 19th century, scientists have thoroughly studied the Sierra Nevada glaciers. Their results indicate an extremely pronounced decrease in size during the last 100 years. Many of these glaciers hark back to the last ice age. They have draped crystalline tunnels over the crags of the mountain range for longer than humans have walked the earth in North America. For example, they tend to be more unstable in their limits. They attained their furthest extent about 30,000 years ago. Research demonstrated that one of the glaciers which visitors see today actually advanced only 7,000 years ago! This finding shakes our old understanding that we had formed regarding the growth patterns of glaciers.
These scientists are now studying four primary glaciers in the Sierra Nevada: Conness, Maclure, Lyell and Palisade. They want to know these glaciers’ fate as the world warms. Nearly 40% of these glaciers are doomed to disappear due to global heating. Should temperatures increase only 2.7 degrees Celsius, we can expect to lose more than 75% of them. This dramatic loss not only changes the character of the region, but has profound ecological consequences.
“This has ecological implications for plants and animals. And it’s a symbolic loss. Climate change is very abstract, but these glaciers are tangible. They’re iconic features of the American West.” – Andrew Jones
The impacts of the glaciers losing their mass go well beyond regional biospheres. As melting glaciers cause the seas to rise, entire communities in fragile coastal environments face the impending threats of mass displacement. As ice melts ever faster, the tragic consequences of global warming have never been clearer.
Andrew Jones, a researcher studying the glaciers, highlighted the significance of this phenomenon: “We’ll be the first to see the ice-free peaks.” His remarks highlight a grim truth just as California is about to see the biggest reshaping of its mountainous landscape from non-volcanic explosions in the state’s history.