Camp Century
Coordinates: 77 ° 10 ′ N , 61 ° 8 ′ W
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Camp Century is an abandoned military base of the United States in Greenland . It is located 240 km east of the US Thule Air Base and was built from the end of 1958 as part of the Project Iceworm project . Camp Century was to become one of several locations in Greenland for nuclear missile launchers. "Thousands of kilometers of rails should be built in tubes under the ice for nuclear missiles and a few hundred launch ramps" for 600 missiles with nuclear warheads, says historian Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen from Aarhus University .
The base consists of 21 tunnels in the ice with a total length of 3000 m. The camp had a nuclear reactor for energy supply. The 0.5 square kilometer facility was built 8 meters under firne ice and had unexpected problems with the flow of ice and the sinking of the waste due to the resulting waste heat with outside temperatures averaging minus 23 degrees Celsius. The station was abandoned in 1966. The entire infrastructure was left behind in 21 tunnels, with around 9200 tonnes of building material, 200 m³ of diesel and polychlorinated benzene (PCB) , 240 m³ of waste water and slightly radioactive cooling water from the nuclear reactor. Only the nuclear power plant was taken. The almost 10,000 tons of garbage are now 30 to 70 m below the surface.
Thanks to its liaison and spy Erik Jørgen-Jensen , the Danish government received more information about Camp Century from 1960 onwards. The public only became aware of the project in 1997. The Canadian climate scientist William Colgan and the glaciologist Horst Machguth from the University of Zurich pointed out in 2016 that the system could come to the surface of the ice in 70 years as a result of ice melt caused by global warming and flow into the Arctic Ocean. There is a risk that contaminated meltwater could permanently pollute and damage the sea and its ecosystems. They published their study in the prestigious Geophysical Research Letters , which attracted attention and sparked debate. In order to research the climate more closely at Camp Century, the Danish government founded the Camp Century Climate Monitoring Program in 2017 . As part of this project, the first expedition took place in summer 2017, during which an international team of researchers installed various permanent measuring stations.
Movie
- Peter Bardehle (Director): The City under the Ice - Cold War in Greenland. Documentation Germany, 2019, 53 min. (Color shots of the US military from the construction phase. In addition to the construction project in the glacier ice, it deals with the Danish government's knowledge of the legacies of the US project in the moving ice mass. Interviewed include Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen from Aarhus University as a contemporary witness and Aleqa Hammond , former Prime Minister of Greenland, Member of the Danish Parliament (Folketing) . She speaks of cover-up .)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elmer F. Clark: Technical Report 174: Camp Century Evolution of Concept and History of Design Construction and Performance at dtic.mil (October 1965; .pdf)
- ↑ Peter Bardehle (script and direction): “The city under the ice. Cold War in Greenland ”, documentary ZDF / VIDICOM2019; Quote in the film at 9 min: 17 sec.Retrieved on January 9, 2020 .
- ↑ SWR Zeitgeschichte broadcast on April 30, 2019
- ↑ Daniela Zeibig: Melting ice could thaw pollutants from the Cold War at Spektrum.de (August 5, 2016)
- ↑ Climate change exposes US military base in Greenland in focus (October 2, 2016)
- ↑ Martin Läubli: The secret city in the ice. The melting of the ice in Greenland could reveal a forgotten US nuclear project. Horst Machguth from Zurich was present at the investigation and is surprised by the political debate that has triggered. Tages-Anzeiger , Zurich October 31, 2016, p. 40.
- ^ The Camp Century Climate Monitoring Program at campcenturyclimate.dk
- ↑ Austrian glacier experts on expedition to abandoned US military base in Greenland at zamg.ac.at (September 19, 2017)