The Iceman That Never Came

Petersen, Nikolaj

doi:10.1080/03468750701449554

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…There, they studied oxygen isotopes in ice core samples, the remainders of an aborted project to secret nuclear warheads under the Greenland ice. What their team uncovered was a hitherto unimagined possibility about historical variations in climate, whereby rapid and profoundly unpredictable changes are the norm rather than the exception, and from which Dansgaard–Oeschger events take their name (Petersen, 2008).…”

Section: Katastrophēmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Problem with the Anthropocene: Kainos, Not Anthropos

McGuire

2023

Constellations

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Section: Katastrophēmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Problem with the Anthropocene: Kainos, Not Anthropos

McGuire

2023

Constellations

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“…Project Iceworm was an ambitious plan by the US Army to build a ballistic missile complex buried in the near-surface ice sheet of northwest Greenland near Thule Air Base. Between 1953 and 1967, five precursor bases were built and maintained at four sites under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as part of a clandestine program to explore the feasibility of deploying up to 600 ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads (Petersen 2008). 4 These missiles were to be mounted on mobile rail cars, constantly moving over railway track hidden in tunnels within the ice sheet.…”

Section: Project Iceworm In Greenlandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That development weakened the strategic logic for Project Iceworm. At the same time, the technical challenges associated with building and maintaining an under-ice railroad and nuclear arsenal in Greenland began to mount (Petersen 2008). Those challenges might have been surmountable, but the army did not have a chance to pursue them.…”

Section: Project Iceworm In Greenlandmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate Change and the Politics of Military Bases

Colgan

2018

Global Environmental Politics

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How does climate change affect the politics of military bases? The United States alone has hundreds of overseas bases that require continuous coordination with host governments. I argue that climate change can create knock-on environmental problems associated with a base’s infrastructure or waste. Those knock-on problems create a mix of subnational, international, and transnational political contestation that raises the political costs of overseas bases and could even rupture an international relationship. I probe the plausibility of the theoretical framework using new evidence from Greenland. Between 1953 and 1967, the US Army maintained secret bases in Greenland as precursors for a nuclear ballistic missile complex. The bases were eventually abandoned, leaving considerable waste behind. Climate change is now poised to remobilize these pollutants into the surface water, creating a risk for human settlements. The case could be the proverbial canary in the coal mine for future politics surrounding overseas military bases.

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“…Camp Century was subsequently constructed at 10-m depth in the firn of the accumulation zone in 1959. Camp Century was a 225-person base, complete with ∼3 km of firn-covered trenches, an operating subsurface railway, and portable nuclear generator (Weiss 2001;Petersen 2008;Martin-Nielsen 2012). The closure of Camp Century in 1965, primarily due to political considerations, marked the end of large U.S. military expenditure on fundamental ice and snow research.…”

Section: Properties and Mechanical Behavior Of Glacier Icementioning

confidence: 99%

Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review

Colgan

Arenson

2013

J. Cold Reg. Eng.

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The authors have compiled information on the fundamentals of open-pit glacier ice excavation from a variety of sources. These sources primarily include U.S. Army technical and scientific studies and peer-reviewed research on glacier ice-excavation activities and the properties and mechanical behavior of ice, but also the relatively few publicly available feasibility studies and environmental impact assessments published by private mining companies. While ice is technically a non-Newtonian fluid over long timescales, the authors suggest that it may be regarded as a low-density and low-strength rock, analogous to coal, for the practical purpose of ice excavation over short timescales. Three distinct ice-excavation techniques are reviewed: blasting, melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each. The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvantages of each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining operation would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and secondarily on blasting.

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The Iceman That Never Came

Cited by 18 publications

References 6 publications

The Problem with the Anthropocene: Kainos, Not Anthropos

The Problem with the Anthropocene: Kainos, Not Anthropos

Climate Change and the Politics of Military Bases

Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review

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