Tri-Service

Climate Change Threatens To Expose Cold War Secrets

The American military didn't try to hide the fact they were building a nuclear powered base in the Arctic Circle in 1960. They even made a public information film on its construction that gave its location in Greenland.

What they didn't mention in the film, or anywhere else, was that the idea behind it was to put 600 missiles inside that could be launched at Russia.

Camp Century was carved out of the permafrost in Greenland when it was still part of Denmark. The work began in 1960.

The ultimately aggressive aim of the project was kept from the Danes who were told the base was a test site for Arctic construction techniques.

Tunnels were dug, buildings were placed inside, thousands of feet of lagged pipes were placed inside to supply water and heat to the 200 soldiers based there and a nuclear reactor that could still cause problems in the area was put in.

The American's abandoned the base in 1966 because the shifting ice of the region made it impractical. As far as we know the missiles were never put there.

As they left the idea was that eventually it would be buried and crushed under the new layers of ice that were then forming over the top of it.

Climate change has moved the goal posts.

According to a recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters the base was once in an ''accumulation zone' where new layers of ice formed each year, but it is now in an area that has lost a trillion tonnes of ice in the last four years.

Camp century is thought to contain thousands of litres of diesel, chemical coolants that can affect the food chain known as PCBs and low grade nuclear waste.

The leaking pollution and political change now mean that four countries could be involved in how Camp Century is dealt with.

The base was established under a deal between the U.S. and Denmark on territory that is now part of an independent Greenland, while some Canadian territory is only 300km away.

That's close enough to be affected by pollution according to experts although they add that the base's exposure may not become an issue until 2090.