Buried below the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, there's an abandoned U.S. Army base. Camp Century had trucks, tunnels, even a nuclear reactor. Advertised as a research station, it was also a test site for deploying nuclear missiles.
The camp was abandoned almost 50 years ago, completely buried below the surface. But serious pollutants were left behind. Now a team of scientists says that as climate warming melts the ice sheet, those pollutants could spread.
When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Camp Century in 1959, an Army film touted it as an engineering marvel — a cavernous home dug into the ice sheet, big enough for up to 200 people. Some sections were more than 100 feet deep. "On the top of the world," the film's narrator intoned, "below the surface of a giant ice cap, a city is buried. Today on the island of Greenland, as part of man's continuing efforts to master the secrets of survival in the Arctic, the United States Army has established an unprecedented nuclear powered Arctic research center."
[...] The climate computer models say the camp could be uncovered by the end of this century.
Now, that's a worst-case scenario, based on an assumption that the world's governments won't do much to further reduce greenhouse gases that cause warming. But other things are happening that could spread that waste sooner.
Source: NPR
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @05:08PM
It is so sad to see how fervent religious belief takes over otherwise rational people.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 08 2016, @06:02PM
Tell me about it. 1.6 billion Muslims, at least 2.2 billion Christians of various stri--oh, wait, you're conflating climate change acceptance, which has actual evidence for it, with religion, which has much AGAINST it. Stop that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @06:58PM
What do you mean by "climate change acceptance"? There is evidence for the existence of climate change?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 08 2016, @07:09PM
Ye ken well what I mean, lad. Dinnae play the fool wi' me.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @08:00PM
No, I really don't know if what you are referring to is well defined enough to beany more testable than various religious beliefs.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 08 2016, @08:14PM
You choose not to. In this era of the internet, with information widely available, there is no excuse. Bloody well go look up the archives of any university's climatology department you care to.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @08:41PM
Wow... pointless to continue then.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 08 2016, @09:09PM
And that just proves my point. You never had any intention to educate yourself. Short of someone tying you down Clockwork-Orange-style and figuring out a way to make your brain speak TCP/IP, that information is not getting in there. Because you don't WANT it to.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @10:22PM
You sure seem to be fond of initiating violence against other people. "You don't believe [subject]? Well, there's information about [subject] on the internets! Go read! What, me, provide any assertions or links to try to back up what I say? No! Also, someone should tie you down, brainwash you, kidnap you, and/or kill you."
Or, in your own words:
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday August 08 2016, @08:41PM
Right, a good example is the science paper [wiley.com] this NPR article is based on, which says:
The [Greenland ice sheet] lost 75 ± 29 Gt a−1 of mass between 1900 and 1983, and recent anthropogenic climate change has accelerated this mass loss, especially since circa 1990 [Kjeldsen et al., 2015]. The ice sheet lost 262 ± 21 Gt a−1 between 2007 and 2011, with the majority of this ice loss due to declining surface mass balance (SMB), meaning enhanced melt and runoff, rather than increased iceberg discharge [Andersen et al., 2015]. Ice loss due to recent climate change is readily observable in northwestern Greenland. The ice drainage system downslope of Camp Century (“Basin 8.2”) lost 14 ± 2 Gt a−1 of ice between 2007 and 2011, and the majority (80%) of this ice loss was due to decreasing SMB [Andersen et al., 2015].
So the claim is that more ice was lost between 2007 and 2011 than between 1900 and 1983. Because we can't travel back in time to take measurements, it's not testable.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 08 2016, @10:12PM
Unless, of course, some people in 1900 and 1983 had thought to draw maps [davidrumsey.com] that included where the ice was. Which would be those measurements you claim couldn't possibly exist.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:38AM
Thank you for clarifying. Now that we agree that "climate change acceptance" means believing that "more ice was lost between 2007 and 2011 than between 1900 and 1983", something which was apparently not established until this paper was published, it is sure that continuing the conversation will be productive.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:03AM
Thank you for clarifying. Now that we agree that "climate change acceptance" means [...]
I don't, of course, speak for the other posters.
[...] "more ice was lost between 2007 and 2011 than between 1900 and 1983", something which was apparently not established until this paper was published [...]
That paragraph summarises other people's work, not their own.