### Forgotten Military Base Rediscovered Under Greenland Ice Sheet

In a surprising discovery, a NASA team led by scientist Chad Greene uncovered a once-secret U.S. military base buried beneath Greenland's icy expanse. During an aerial survey in April, 150 miles east of the Pituffik Space Base, Greene's team observed an unexpected radar anomaly while flying a Gulfstream III over northern Greenland.

Initially perplexed by their findings, the crew soon realized they had stumbled upon Camp Century, a Cold War-era base constructed in 1959 and abandoned after only eight years. Known as the "city under the ice," Camp Century had been a hub for testing nuclear missile deployments from the Arctic. Over time, it became entombed beneath roughly 100 feet of accumulated snow and ice.

This hidden relic, a labyrinth of tunnels within the ice sheet, was detected with unprecedented clarity thanks to the advanced Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) employed by Greene and his team. Unlike earlier radar surveys, where the base appeared as a mere disturbance in the ice, the new radar images allowed NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory cryospheric scientists, including Alex Gardner, to identify distinct structures within the secretive facility. They successfully matched these images with historical maps of Camp Century.

Camp Century's reappearance raises environmental concerns, as it was decommissioned hastily in 1967, leaving behind potentially harmful radioactive and chemical waste. Currently, the base lies safely under the ice bed nearly a mile deep. However, the ongoing melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet means that such waste could emerge as a future threat.

Greene emphasized that their radar mission primarily aimed to study the ice sheet's internal layers and bed interface to understand ice thickness and predict sea level rise better. The radar images of Camp Century, gathered by chance, offer a poignant reminder of the site’s historic and potentially hazardous legacy.

NASA's Earth Observatory highlighted this fascinating discovery as the Image of the Day on November 25, 2024. The work of Greene, Gardner, and their dedicated team underscores the complexities of monitoring climate change and unearths long-buried secrets of the Cold War.