The U.S. built a ‘city under ice’ in Greenland in 1960: 60 years after closing, Camp Century could trigger an environmental crisis

In 1960, the U.S. military built something extraordinary beneath Greenland’s ice: an underground city powered by a portable nuclear reactor, built to test whether a permanent military base could operate beneath the ice sheet. More than six decades later, the abandoned Cold War relic has become a symbol of a new threat: climate change.

The secret Cold War mission hidden beneath Greenland

Camp Century served as a prototype for Project Iceworm, a classified plan to build an enormous network of tunnels hiding hundreds of nuclear missiles beneath Greenland’s ice. The United States’ plan was to move the missiles through thousands of miles of tunnels so the Soviet Union could never know their exact locations.

The project never advanced beyond the prototype stage. By 1967, Camp Century had been abandoned after approximately 3 kilometers (about 1.9 miles) of tunnels had been constructed, connecting more than 20 structures, including dormitories, laboratories, a hospital, a chapel and, of course, the PM-2A portable nuclear reactor.

Engineers discovered the ice sheet was much less stable than initially expected. The tunnels had to be repaired constantly, but eventually became distorted and even crushed by the moving ice. It quickly became obvious that maintaining a network of missiles in those conditions would be impossible.

What was left behind beneath the ice?

When Camp Century was abandoned, the U.S. assumed the ice sheet would keep growing forever and, as a result, much of the site’s waste was left behind beneath the ice. According to a 2016 study, The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate, that included around 200,000 liters (53,000 gallons) of diesel fuel, untreated sewage, construction debris, PCBs (industrial chemicals), and low-level radioactive coolant associated with the reactor system.

Of course, we now know that the ice sheet is melting, which has led researchers to warn that climate change could eventually shift the site from net snowfall to net melting. If enough ice melts, meltwater could eventually reach the buried waste and carry pollutants into the surrounding environment, posing a significant threat to nearby ecosystems and potentially human health.

Could Camp Century become an environmental threat?

A 2021 study by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) concluded that Camp Century is likely to remain buried through 2100, suggesting the immediate risk is lower than earlier projections indicated. However, scientists continue to warn that if Greenland’s ice sheet keeps shrinking beyond that point, the abandoned Cold War base could eventually release fuel, chemicals, and other pollutants that have remained trapped beneath the ice for decades.

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