The Daily BuzzGlobal warming could reveal top-secret U.S. military project in Greenland
[W. Robert Moore/National Geographic/Getty Images]
A top-secret U.S. military project constructed under ice during the Cold War may eventually see the light of day due to global warming, according to a study featured in The Guardian.
Camp Century was excavated in 1959 by the U.S. army, 200 kilometres away from Greenland’s coast. Known as “the city under the ice,” the network consisted of tunnels spanning three kilometres and had enough space for 200 soldiers to visit a shop, a hospital, a cinema and a chapel.
While scientists at Camp Century were able to study the world’s climate by drilling the first ice core samples, the camp became a cover for Project Iceworm, which sought to test the possibility of a nuclear missile launch site under ice to be potentially used against the Soviet Union.
Plans for 4,000 kilometres of underground tunnels and chambers had to be scrapped after the Americans determined it wouldn’t work because of the challenges of building under ice.
By 1964, Camp Century was only used sporadically, and it was completely abandoned before the end of the decade with the assumption that everything would be buried under ice for eternity — including all of its the toxic waste.
“They thought it would never be exposed,” York University climate and glacier scientist William Colgan said in The Guardian.
The lead author of the report, originally published in Geophysical Research Letters, noted that based on climate change simulations, the camp and its contents could surface by the end of this century.
“Our estimate is that by 2090, the exposure will be irreversible,” Colgan told The Guardian. “It could happen sooner if the magnitude of climate change accelerates.”
The toxic waste could be problematic if it were to be exposed and it’s unclear who would be responsible for cleaning it up since it was American work that took place on Danish territory.
