Secret Cold War Base In Greenland Ice Sheet Discovered

 The Daily Mail reports that a "Secret Cold War nuclear base hidden under ice sheet is captured in stunning photo by pilot flying overhead." Per the article:

    Camp Century, also known as 'the city under the ice,' was a US military base built in 1959. It consists of of 21 tunnels drilled just below the surface of the ice sheet, spanning a total length of 9,800 feet.

    It was used as a front for Project Iceworm, which aimed to install a vast network of nuclear missile launch sites that could target the Soviet Union.

    But due to the instability of the ice sheet, the project - and Camp Century - was ultimately abandoned in 1967, gradually becoming buried in snow and ice. 

Although ground penetrating radar had previously detected the base, scientist studying the thinning of the ice sheet were using a different imaging technology--NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR)--which was able to map the structure and layout of the base.

    What caught my attention is that the base is now 100 feet below the surface of the ice. Although the article indicated that the base consisted of "tunnels drilled just below the surface of the ice sheet," that is not correct. The Wikipedia page concerning the base indicated that the base was actually constructed by digging trenches which where then roofed over, and even has photographs from the construction showing that type of construction. And it wasn't "instability" in the ice sheet that forced the closure of the base, but a variety of factors the most significant being issues with the sewage system and the fact that compression and spread of the trenches was requiring too much upkeep to keep them within specifications. 

    So while we are being told that the ice sheet is thinning, we have this incongruous data point that suggest that there has been 80 to 90 feet additional snow and ice accumulation over this base since it was first constructed in 1959.