A potential environmental disaster is lurking beneath Greenland’s ice as diplomatic tensions rise over the Arctic region’s future.
This looming crisis is tied not to the possibility of a US military action in Greenland, which is under Danish jurisdiction, but to a Cold War era mistake involving one of the approximately 10 operational US bases there during that time.
The first sign of this threat emerged in 2024 when a NASA radar mapping mission detected a large structure partially visible due to climate change-induced melting of Greenland’s ice sheets.
Known as the ‘city under the ice’, this structure was an abandoned military base constructed 118 feet below the ice surface. It was meant to safeguard America’s nuclear arsenal against potential Soviet attacks during the Cold War.
Named Camp Century, this base was designed as a self-sufficient community beneath the Greenland ice, complete with dormitories, a church, a medical facility, and a small nuclear reactor.
This sub-glacial settlement of military personnel and scientists operated for roughly seven years, beginning in 1960. It aimed to explore building techniques and gather data on ice construction.
The base was part of Project Iceworm, a Cold War initiative revealed in 1996, which planned to position nuclear launch sites beneath the ice to enable US retaliation in the event of a nuclear strike on its mainland.
However, shifting ice made permanent construction unviable, with tunnel collapses and sewage issues causing unpleasant conditions at the base.
It’s not just human waste lingering under Greenland’s ice fields.
Nuclear and chemical waste from the reactor and other operations was buried there, initially considered a permanent storage solution by scientists of that era.
Now, with climate change exposing this forgotten base, there’s a risk of an environmental catastrophe as radioactive material, chemical waste, and diesel fuel might be unearthed.
“What climate change did was press the gas pedal to the floor,” University of Colorado climate scientist James White told the Mail.
“The question is whether it’s going to come out in hundreds of years, thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years.
“Climate change just means it’s going to happen much faster than anyone expected.”
Researchers from the university’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) estimate that about 9,200 tonnes of waste remains at the former Camp Century site.
Besides nuclear waste, there are approximately 200,000 liters of fuel and significant quantities of various chemicals.
This includes polychlorinated biphenyls, a hazardous byproduct of electrical engineering known to cause cancer, harm the immune system, and inhibit children’s development.