The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate
Abstract In 1959 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Camp Century beneath the surface of the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet. There they studied the feasibility of deploying ballistic missiles within the ice sheet. The base and its wastes were abandoned with minimal decommissioning in 1967, unde...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2016-08-01
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| Series: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069688 |
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| author | William Colgan Horst Machguth Mike MacFerrin Jeff D. Colgan Dirk vanAs Joseph A. MacGregor |
| author_facet | William Colgan Horst Machguth Mike MacFerrin Jeff D. Colgan Dirk vanAs Joseph A. MacGregor |
| author_sort | William Colgan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract In 1959 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Camp Century beneath the surface of the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet. There they studied the feasibility of deploying ballistic missiles within the ice sheet. The base and its wastes were abandoned with minimal decommissioning in 1967, under the assumption they would be preserved for eternity by perpetually accumulating snowfall. Here we show that a transition in ice sheet surface mass balance at Camp Century from net accumulation to net ablation is plausible within the next 75 years, under a business‐as‐usual anthropogenic emissions scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5). Net ablation would guarantee the eventual remobilization of physical, chemical, biological, and radiological wastes abandoned at the site. While Camp Century and four other contemporaneous ice sheet bases were legally established under a Danish‐U.S. treaty, the potential remobilization of their abandoned wastes, previously regarded as sequestered, represents an entirely new pathway of political dispute resulting from climate change. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-6c39376a4ea34c729643058bdc970aad |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 0094-8276 1944-8007 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2016-08-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Geophysical Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj-art-6c39376a4ea34c729643058bdc970aad2025-08-20T01:51:54ZengWileyGeophysical Research Letters0094-82761944-80072016-08-0143158091809610.1002/2016GL069688The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climateWilliam Colgan0Horst Machguth1Mike MacFerrin2Jeff D. Colgan3Dirk vanAs4Joseph A. MacGregor5Lassonde School of Engineering York University Toronto Ontario CanadaDepartment of Geography University of Zurich Zurich SwitzerlandCooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USAWatson Institute Brown University Providence Rhode Island USADepartment of Glaciology and Climate Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Copenhagen DenmarkCryospheric Sciences Laboratory (Code 615) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt Maryland USAAbstract In 1959 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Camp Century beneath the surface of the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet. There they studied the feasibility of deploying ballistic missiles within the ice sheet. The base and its wastes were abandoned with minimal decommissioning in 1967, under the assumption they would be preserved for eternity by perpetually accumulating snowfall. Here we show that a transition in ice sheet surface mass balance at Camp Century from net accumulation to net ablation is plausible within the next 75 years, under a business‐as‐usual anthropogenic emissions scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5). Net ablation would guarantee the eventual remobilization of physical, chemical, biological, and radiological wastes abandoned at the site. While Camp Century and four other contemporaneous ice sheet bases were legally established under a Danish‐U.S. treaty, the potential remobilization of their abandoned wastes, previously regarded as sequestered, represents an entirely new pathway of political dispute resulting from climate change.https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069688Camp CenturyGreenlandice sheet |
| spellingShingle | William Colgan Horst Machguth Mike MacFerrin Jeff D. Colgan Dirk vanAs Joseph A. MacGregor The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate Geophysical Research Letters Camp Century Greenland ice sheet |
| title | The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate |
| title_full | The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate |
| title_fullStr | The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate |
| title_full_unstemmed | The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate |
| title_short | The abandoned ice sheet base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a warming climate |
| title_sort | abandoned ice sheet base at camp century greenland in a warming climate |
| topic | Camp Century Greenland ice sheet |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069688 |
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