Global warming induced ice melt to uncover nuclear waste

Up to 200,000 litres of fuel and
low-level radioactive coolant
from a nuclear generator
were buried at the base in 1967.

Global warming could release radioactive waste stored in an abandoned Cold War-era US military camp deep under Greenland's ice caps if a thaw continues to spread in coming decades, scientists say.

Camp Century was built in north-west Greenland in 1959 as part of US research into the feasibility of nuclear missile launch sites in the Arctic, the University of Zurich said in a statement.

Staff left fuel and an unknown amount of low-level radioactive coolant there when the base shut down in 1967 on the assumption it would be entombed forever, according to the university.

While the waste is currently about 35 metres underneath the ice, the part of the ice sheet covering the camp could start to melt by the end of the century, based on current trends, the scientists said.

"Climate change could remobilise the abandoned hazardous waste believed to be buried forever beneath the Greenland ice sheet," the university said, of findings published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Read the ABC story - “Thaw could release Cold War-era radioactive waste buried under Greenland's ice, scientists say.”