Glaciers and permafrost are melting around the world, and in some places the retreating ice is releasing hidden secrets that people hoped would remain forgotten.
Rising waters have exposed a secret Greenland nuclear base that engineers thought would never resurface, as well as a radioactive ‘Tomb’ at the site of US nuclear testing.
And while it sounds far-fetched, highly credible experts have warned that the next pandemic may emerge from ancient pathogens buried in the ice, or even from diseases found in frozen, dead Neanderthals.
The ‘secret nuclear city’ under the ice of Greenland
Camp Century in Greenland is a secret, nuclear-powered “city under the ice” where US Army engineers conducted weapons research.
The base has been abandoned for almost half a century
The legacy of waste at Camp Century could resurface
When the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) left the base, they assumed that cold temperatures and falling snow would keep the nuclear waste there forever.
The base has been abandoned for almost half a century, but is now raising serious concerns about nuclear waste.
Powered by a portable nuclear generator, Camp Century was built in 1959 and housed 200 soldiers, with a plan to expand the base with 600 ballistic missiles.
‘Camp Century’ was abandoned in 1967, but the nuclear reactor on the base – which also had a hospital and a church in the tunnels – has long been removed, but radioactive waste remains.
When the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) left the base, they assumed that cold temperatures and falling snow would keep the nuclear waste there forever.
In total, the waste is equivalent to the mass of thirty Airbus A320 aircraft – and researchers now fear it could end up in the sea.
A 2016 study suggested that the nuclear waste could be dumped into the sea this century, but newer measurements at the base suggest that won’t happen until 2100.
‘Tomb’ of poison at nuclear test site
In the Marshall Islands, a huge ‘lid’ known to locals as ‘The Tomb’ covers 31 million cubic meters of nuclear waste – equivalent to the volume of 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The islands were the site of US nuclear tests, but the US military also shipped waste from the mainland.
The islands were the site of American nuclear tests
The islands were the site of American nuclear tests
From 1946 to 1958, America conducted 67 nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
The concrete ‘lid’, officially known as the Runit Dome, was built on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands to contain radioactive material from US nuclear tests in the 1950s.
Some studies have suggested that radiation levels near the site are comparable to those near Chernobyl and that the water around the dome is rising every year.
Changing temperatures cause the lid to crack as rising water laps against the atoll.
Plutonium – and a lost hydrogen bomb?
A 1968 plane crash spread plutonium from US nuclear weapons across the ice in Greenland, which could be released by global warming.
The US military assumed that Thule Air Base in Greenland would soon be attacked in a nuclear war and therefore kept nuclear-armed bombers in the air to fly towards Russia in the event of an attack.
The Thule incident spread large amounts of radioactive plutonium onto the ice sheet
The Thule incident spread large amounts of radioactive plutonium onto the ice sheet
In the Thule incident, large amounts of radioactive plutonium were spread on the ice sheet when a cabin fire in a B-52 bomber forced the crew to bail out.
Conventional explosives in the four B28FI thermonuclear bombs exploded, spreading radioactive waste.
But the fissile uranium-235 core of one of the bombs was never found, despite submarine searches.
Reports in the decades since have suggested that the lost bomb lies beneath the seabed.
Frozen viruses and the next pandemic
Researchers have warned that the next pandemic could result from melting ice.
Genetic analysis of bottom and lake sediments near the highest Arctic freshwater lake, Lake Hazen, suggests the risk of ‘viral spillover’ may be high near melting glaciers.
Can ‘zombie’ viruses infect the human race? (Getty)
‘Spillover’ is where a virus infects a new host for the first time – and analysis of viruses and potential hosts in the lake bottom suggests this risk may be greater near melting glaciers.
Researchers at Ohio State University found genetic material from 33 viruses, 28 of which were unknown, on the Tibetan Plateau in China, estimating their age at 15,000 years old.
Viruses of Neanderthals
Other researchers have warned of viruses released by the melting of permafrost: a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere sits atop permanently frozen ground – known as permafrost, but large areas are now melting as the world warms.
There are already examples of this – with a 2016 anthrax outbreak in Siberia attributed to the melting of permafrost, exposing a contaminated reindeer carcass.
Virologist Jean-Michel Claverie has warned that ancient viruses contained in the long-frozen ground could be released
Previously, researchers have warned that global warming and thawing ice could reveal diseases such as smallpox, frozen in the corpses of victims, with a few infectious particles being enough to revive the pathogen .
As permafrost thaws due to climate change, virologist Jean-Michel Claverie has warned that ancient viruses harbored in the long-frozen soil could be released.
Claverie explains that if an ancient pathogen wipes out Neanderthals, for example, their frozen remains could still harbor infectious viruses that could be released when the ice melts.
Claverie told Bloomberg News: “Climate change has made us used to thinking of dangers coming from the south.
“Now we realize that danger could come from the north as the permafrost thaws and releases microbes, bacteria and viruses.”
Claverie’s team has previously revived giant viruses from as far back as 48,000 years ago – and the veteran scientist has warned that there could be even more ancient viruses in the ice, some of which could potentially infect humans.
Frozen poison in the ice
The polar regions have acted as a ‘chemical sink’ for the planet, trapping toxins in the ice – but melting ice could release them.
A study in Geophysical Research Letters shows that there are vast amounts of the toxic heavy metal mercury frozen in the permafrost in the Arctic.
The amount could be ten times higher than all the mercury pumped into the atmosphere from industry in three decades.
Paul Schuster, a hydrologist with the US Geological Survey, said: “This is a complete game-changer for mercury. It’s a natural source, but some of it will be released by what we’re doing with climate change.”
Mercury is released by industry, volcanic eruptions and rock weathering – but what is less clear is what will happen when the Arctic ‘pool’ is released.