‘The Deepest and Most Rewarding Hole Ever Drilled’: Ice Cores and the Cold War in Greenland

Summary

The recovery of the Camp Century deep ice core in 1966 – the first ice core to reach all the way through a polar ice sheet to bedrock – marked a shift from an era of United States military dominated glaciological research in Greenland to an era of climate oriented research on the island. This paper aims to provide an understanding of this shift. I show that the Camp Century ice core was at the heart of a complex blend of environmental, military and scientific interests. By deconstructing these interests, I ultimately show that the island of Greenland underwent two reimaginings during the early Cold War. First, the island was reimagined as part of the US Cold War military sphere: driven by the need to secure the North American continent, the US established a hegemonic military colonization of Greenland. In the second reimagining of the island, environmental geography led the way: the scientific results of the Camp Century ice core and political concern about climatic change converged in the early 1970s to build Greenland into a unique location for pursuing research on climate questions. This paper adds to the literature by contextualizing the Camp Century ice core at the interface between the history of science, environmental history and Cold War history, and thereby illuminating Greenland as a dual geopolitical entity and environmental space. By highlighting the interaction of climatic change, geophysical sciences and national security narratives, it responds to recent historiographic calls to unite a set of narratives which, too often, talk past one another.

Acknowledgements

It is my pleasure to thank Matthias Heymann, Ronald E. Doel and Christopher Jacob Ries for their comments on an early draft of this paper; Elizabeth Hoffmeister (CRREL, New Hampshire), Vibeke Sloth Jacobsen (Arktisk Institut, Copenhagen), Susanne Nørskov (Center for Science Studies, Aarhus University) and Maiken Lolck for their assistance with archival documents; and the three reviewers for their suggestions which have strengthened the manuscript.

Notes

¹Chester C. Langway, The history of early polar ice cores (Hanover NH: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 2008), 36.

²Elizabeth Kolbert, Ice memory: does a glacier hold the secret of how civilization began - and how it may end? New Yorker, 7 January 2002, 3.

³For Camp Century, see Charles Michael Daugherty, City under the ice: the story of Camp Century (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963); Walter Wager, Camp Century: city under the ice. (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1962); The Big Picture: city under the ice (1961 documentary, U.S. Army Audiovisual Center, Department of the Army).

⁴A sample of these include Paul N. Edwards, A vast machine: computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2010); Matthias Dörries, ‘The politics of atmospheric sciences: ‘nuclear winter' and global climate change', Osiris 26 (2011), 198–223; Richard Hamblyn, ‘The whistleblower and the Canary: rhetorical constructions of climate change'. Journal of Historical Geography 35 (2009) 223–36; Astrid Dirikx and Dave Gelders, ‘To frame is to explain: A deductive frame-analysis of Dutch and French climate change coverage during the annual UN Conferences of the Parties’, Public Understanding of Science 19 (November 2010); Nancy Langston, ‘Paradise Lost: Climate Change, Boreal Forests, and Environmental History,’ Environmental History 14 (2009), 641–50.

⁵Doel's call appears in Ronald E. Doel, ‘Constituting the postwar earth sciences: the military's influence on the environmental sciences in the USA after 1945’. Social Studies of Science, 33 (2003), 635–66 and Ronald E. Doel, ‘Quelle place pour les sciences de l'environment physique dans l'histoire environmentale?’ Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 56 (2009), 137–64, while Heymann et al.'s call appears in Matthias Heymann, Henrik Knudsen, Maiken Lolck, Henry Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen and Christopher Jacob Ries, Exploring Greenland: science and technology in Cold War settings (Scientia Canadensis, 2011). Other scholars who issue similar calls include Sverker Sörlin, ‘Narratives and counter narratives of climate change: North Atlantic glaciology and meteorology, c. 1930–1955’, Journal of Historical Geography, 35 (2009), 237–55; Sverker Sörlin and Paul Warde, Making the environment historical – an introduction. In Nature's end: environment and history, edited by S. Sörlin and P. Warde (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009); John R. McNeill and Corinna R. Unger, ‘Introduction: the big picture’. In Environmental history and the Cold War, edited by J. R. McNeill and C. R. Unger (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Stephen Bocking, ‘Science and Spaces in the Northern Environment'. Environmental History, 12 (2007), 868–95; John R. McNeill, ‘Observations on the nature and culture of environmental history’. History and Theory, 42 (2003), 5–43.

⁶Maiken Lolck, Klima, kold krig og iskerner (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetforlag, 2006); Aant Elzinga, Some aspects in the history of ice core drilling and science from IGY to EPICA. In 3rd SCAR Antarctic History Action Group Workshop (Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 2007); Aant Elzinga, ‘Through the lens of the polar years: changing characteristics of polar research in historical perspective'. Polar Record, 45 (2009), 313–36; Spencer R. Weart, The discovery of global warming (revised and expanded edition) (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008); Richard B. Alley, The two-mile time machine: ice cores, abrupt climate change, and our future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). Historical reports and memoirs of participants: C.C. Langway, Early ice cores. Geoscience News (Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan) (2006) 5–9; Langway, ‘The history of early polar ice cores’; Willi Dansgaard, Frozen annals: Greenland ice cap research (Copenhagen: Niels Bohr Institute, 2005); Edmund A. Wright, CRREL's first 25 years, 1961–1986 (U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 1986).

⁷McNeill & Unger, ‘Introduction’, 4.

⁸For the Arctic as a strategic Cold War space, see Rolf Tamnes, The United States and the Cold War in the high north (Dartmouth, UK: Dartmouth Publishing, 1991); John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy (Chicago The University of Chicago Press, 1984); Samuel P. Huntington, The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961); Sanjay Chaturvedi, The polar regions: a political geography (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 1996); Shelagh Grant, Polar Imperative (Douglas & McIntyre, 2010).

⁹Appendix 1, Importance of the high Arctic to North American defense [hereafter, Importance of the high Arctic], in Report of the Arctic Institute of North America, Office of Naval Research, Arctic Research Advisory Committee, 25 October 1957 (Presented at the hearings before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives 85th Congress, 2nd session, 22–24 January 1958), 40–1. Also U.S. Objectives with Respect to the USSR to Counter Soviet Threats to U.S. Security (NSC 20/4, 23 November 1948). TOP SECRET. In Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 1. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, Department of State); The New York Times, Byrd stresses use of Arctic in a war (18 November 1947). For the other side of the coin – that is, Soviet Arctic strategy during the Cold War – see Michael McGwire, Strategic interests in the Arctic ocean. In Sovereignty and security in the Arctic, edited by E. J. Dosman. (London: Routledge, 1989); Terence Armstrong, The Russians in the Arctic: aspects of Soviet exploration and exploitation of the far north, 1937–57 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1958); E. Ellingsen, ‘The military balance on the northern flank’. In Clash in the North: polar summitry and NATO's northern flank, edited by W.Goldstein (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1988); O. Jalonen, ‘The strategic significance of the Arctic’. In The Arctic challenge: Nordic and Canadian approaches to security and cooperation in an emerging international region, edited by K. Möttölä (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988).

¹⁰Doel, ‘What's the place,’ 5–7.

¹¹For Ahlmann, see Sverker Sörlin, The global warming that did not happen: historicizing glaciology and climate change. In Nature's end: environment and history, edited by S. Sörlin and P. Warde (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 101. For discussion of Ahlmann, also see Sverker Sörlin, Hans Ahlmann, Arctic research and polar warming: from a national to an international science agenda, 1929–1952. Mundus Liborum: essays on books and the history of learning (Helsinki: Helsinki University Library, 1996); Sörlin, ‘Narratives’.

¹²Siple, quoted in F.L. Korsmo, ‘Glaciology, the arctic, and the US military, 1945–58’. In New spaces of exploration: geographies of discovery in the 20th century, edited by S. Naylor and J. R. Ryan (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 131.

¹³Heymann et al., ‘Exploring Greenland’.

¹⁴Louis Quam, Scientific program development. In Proceedings of the long-range polar objectives conference (Easton, Maryland, 4–6 March 1968) (Washington DC: US Department of Transportation, 1968), 23. Also Bernt Balchen, ‘The Arctic: present and future'. In Proceedings of the long-range polar objectives conference (Easton, Maryland, 4–6 March 1968) (Washington DC: US Department of Transportation, 1968); Committee on Polar Research (1967). Glaciology in the Arctic (Committee on Polar Research, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council). American Geophysical Union Transactions, 48; J. O. Fletcher, The heat budget of the Arctic basin and its relation to climate (AD0474183) (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1965); Gladwin Hill, Warming Arctic Climate Melting Glaciers Faster, Raising Ocean Level, Scientist Says, The New York Times (May 30 1947); Henri Bader, W.E. van Steenburgh and David M. Tyree, ‘Arctic research: a study prepared for the chief of naval defense (AD 660372)' (Montréal and Washington: Arctic Institute of North America, 1967).

¹⁵ The Economist (1 July 1967). Russia's other Suez, 224, issue 6462 (1967), 4.

¹⁶Fletcher, ‘The heat budget’.

¹⁷Heymann et al., ‘Exploring Greenland’; Clive Archer, ‘The United States defense areas in Greenland’. Cooperation and Conflict, 23 (1988), 123–44; Chaturvedi, ‘The polar regions’; Nikolaj Petersen, ‘SAC at Thule: Greenland in the US polar strategy'. Journal of Cold War Studies, 13 (2011), 90–115.

¹⁸Emil G. Beaudry, Air potentialities of the Greenland ice cap in high latitude defense: a research paper submitted to the Faculty of the Air Command and Staff School of the Air University, code no. 12 (originally secret) (National Archives RG 319, Records of the Army Staff) (Alabama: Maxwell Air Force Base, 1949), 1, 24.

¹⁹While Greenland had attracted the interest of US explorers, businessmen and politicians since the 19^th century, US interest in the island first took on urgent strategic dimensions during World War II (Nancy Fogelsen, Greenland: strategic base on a northern defense line. Journal of Military History 53 (1) (1989), 51–63). In terms of (post)colonialism, local knowledge, and the ‘bilateral triangle’ of Greenland, Denmark and the United States, Greenlandic history is still very much a work in progress. See Borring-Olesen, Thorsten. 2010. Cold War and Cold Science: Greenland in Danish-American Relationship 1945–1968 (Cold War science, colonial politics and national identity in the Arctic Conference, Aarhus University); Natalia Loukacheva, The Arctic promise: legal and political autonomy of Greenland and Nunavut (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); Poul Villaume, Allieret med forbehold: Danmark, NATO og den kolde krig. Et studie i dansk sikkerhedspolitik 1949–1961 (Copenhagen: Eirene, 1995).

²⁰Archer, ‘United States defense areas’; Warren F. Kimball, The juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as wartime statesman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Scott T. Price, ‘Arctic combat: the capture of the German naval auxiliary Externsteine by the coast guard icebreakers Eastwind and Southwind in Greenland, 1944'. United States Coast Guard History Series ( www.uscg.mil/history/articles/Externsteine.asp ) (2011).

²¹Heymann et al., ‘Exploring Greenland’. Also Defense of Greenland (1951). Agreement between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27, 1951. American Foreign Policy 1950–55, Basic documents (Department of State Publication 6446, General Foreign Policy Series 117) (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office); The Economist, Greenland, Denmark and the USA, Vol 153, issue 5419, 11; DUPI, Grønland under den kolde krig: dansk og amerikansk sikkerhedspolitik, 1945–68 (København: Dansk Udenrigspolitisk Institut, 1997); Villaume, ‘Allieret med forbehold’.

²²Report of the Arctic Institute of North America, Office of Naval Research, Arctic Research Advisory Committee, 25 October 1957 (Presented at the hearings before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives 85th Congress, 2nd session, 22–24 January 1958), 38 (my emphasis).

²³For an overview of US Cold War scientific research in Greenland see Heymann et al., ‘Exploring Greenland’. For related case studies, see Henrik Knudsen (under review). Cold War, ionospheric research in Greenland, and the politics of rockets: a study of the ill-fated Operation PCA 68; Janet Martin-Nielsen, ‘The other cold war: the United States and Greenland's ice sheet environment, 1948–1966'. Journal of Historical Geography, 38 (1) (2012), 69–80.

²⁴For SIPRE and CRREL, see F.L. Korsmo, ‘The early Cold War and US arctic research'. In Extremes: oceanography's adventures at the poles, edited by K. R. Benson and H. M. Rozwadowski (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2007); Korsmo, ‘Glaciology’; Wright, ‘CRREL’.

²⁵Richard F. Flint, Snow, ice and permafrost in military operations (Box SIPRE Reports 1–8, Polar Biblioteket, Arktisk Institut, Copenhagen, 1950), 3–5. Of course, the US was far from the only country active in glaciology during the Cold War. The activities of other countries, including, most prominently, the USSR, France, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom, are outside the scope of this paper. See Christian Kehrt, In progress. German polar expeditions in a global perspective (Habilitation project, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg); P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Matthew Farish, ‘The Cold War on Canadian soil: militarizing a northern environment'. Environmental History, 12 (4) (2007), 921–50; Leonard LeSchack, ‘The French polar effort and the Expeditions Polaires Francaises', Arctic, 17 (1964), 3–14; Borge Fristrup, The Greenland ice cap (Copenhagen: Rhodos, 1986).

²⁶Matthias Heymann, ‘Klimakonstruktionen: von der klassichen Klimatologie zur Klimaforschung’. NTM Journal of History of Sciences, Technology and Medicine, 17 (2009), 171–97; Matthias Heymann, ‘The evolution of climate ideas and knowledge’. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: climate change 1 (2010), 581–97.

²⁷There is rich historical work on the development of numerical climate models in this era (Paul N. Edwards, A vast machine: computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2010); Paul N. Edwards, ‘History of climate modeling'. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: climate change, 2 (2011), 128–39; Spencer R. Weart, ‘The development of general circulation models of climate'. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (2010), 208–17; Helene Guillemot, ‘Les modeles numeriques de climat'. In Les modeles du futur: changement climatique and scenarios economiques: enjeux politiques et economiques, edited by Amy Dahan (Paris: La Decouverte, 2007); Amy Dahan Dalmedico, ‘History and epistemology of models: meteorology as a case study, 1946–1963'. Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences, 55 (2001), 395–422), but the other three groups have barely been investigated from the historical point of view.

²⁸Else Wegener and Fritz Loewe, eds., Alfred Wegeners letzte Grönlandfahrt. Die Erlebnisse der Deutschen Grönland-Expedition 1930/1931 geschildert von seinen Reisegefährten und nach Tagebüchern des Forschers. (Leipzig Brockhaus, 1937); Ernst Sorge, ‘Scientific results of the Wegener Expedition to Greenland'. Geographical Journal 81 (1933), 333–4; Ernst Sorge, ‘Glaziologische Untersuchungen in Eismitte'. In Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Deutschen Groenland Expedition Alfred Wegener 1929 und 1930–31 (Leipzig: F.A. Brokaus, 1935).

²⁹For changing scientific and exploration styles in polar regions, see Trevor H. Levere, Science and the Canadian arctic: a century of exploration, 1818–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Michael E. Robinson, The coldest crucible: Arctic exploration and American culture (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006); Michael T. Bravo and Sverker Sörlin, eds., Narrating the Arctic: a cultural history of Nordic scientific practices (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 2002); Peder Roberts, The European Antarctic: science and strategy in Scandinavia and the British Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

³⁰J.C. Heuberger, Groenland, glaciologie, Forages sur l'inlandis (Paris: Hermann and Cie, 1994); Paul-Émile Victor, Groenland 1948–1949 (Arthaud, 1951); Paul-Émile Victor, The French polar research expeditions 1948–1951 (New York: French Embassy Press and Information Division, 1952).

³¹Langway, ‘The history of early polar ice cores', 103.

³²For the Juneau Icefield Research Project, see Cal Heusser, Juneau Icefield Research Project (1949–1958) (Elsevier, 2007), 43–60. For Benson's traverse, see C.S. Benson, SIPRE Report 24: Scientific work of Party Crystal, 1954 (preliminary report, April 1955). US Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment. In Corps of Engineers, Greenland ice cap research program, studies completed in 1954. (Vicksburg, Miss.: Army-MRC, 1955); C.S. Benson, Physical investigations on the snow and firn of northwest Greenland 1952, 1953 and 1954. US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (Hannover, NH: CRREL, 1959); C.S. Benson, Stratigraphic studies in the snow and firn of the Greenland ice sheet. US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (Hannover, NH: CRREL, 1962). For the Site 2 ice core, see Henri Bader, R.W. Waterhouse, JK Landauer, B.L. Hansen, James A. Bender and TR Butkovich. SIPRE Report 20: Excavations and installations at SIPRE test site, Site 2, Greenland (April 1955). US Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment. In Corps of Engineers, Greenland ice cap research program, studies completed in 1954 (Vicksburg, Miss.: Army-MRC, 1955); Henri Bader, ‘United States polar ice and snow studies in the International Geophysical Year'. In Geophysics and the IGY: Proceedings of the symposium at the opening of the International Geophysical Year, US National Committee for the IGY, 28–29 June 1957 (Geophysical Monograph no. 2, publication 590), edited by H. Odishaw and S. Ruttenberg (Washington, DC: National Academies of Science, 1958).

³³On the IGY, see J. R. Fleming and R. D. Launius, eds. Globalizing polar science: reconsidering the international polar and geophysical years (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); F.L. Korsmo, The genesis of the International Geophysical Year. Physics Today, 60 (2007), 38–43; Walter Sullivan, Assault on the unknown: the International Geophysical Year (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1961); Allan A. Needell, Science, Cold War and the American state: Lloyd V. Berkner and the balance of professional ideals (London: Harwood Academic Press, 2000); Christy Collis and Klaus Dodds, Assault on the unknown: the historical and political geographies of the International Geophysical Year (1957–8), Journal of Historical Geography, 34 (2008), 555–573.

³⁴Henri Bader, US polar snow and ice studies in the International Geophysical Year (presented at a special meeting of the US National Committee for the IGY, June 27–29, 1957) (National Academy of Sciences, 1957), 3; Bader, ‘Polar ice and snow’.

³⁵Chester C. Langway, ‘A 400 metre deep ice core in Greenland, Preliminary Report'. Journal of Glaciology, 3 (1958), 216–7; C.C. Langway, ‘Bubble pressures in Greenland glacier ice'. In Symposium of Chamonix, France (International Association of Scientific Hydrology (Publication 47), 1958); C.C. Langway, CRREL Report MP 253: Some physical and chemical investigations of a 400 m deep Greenland ice core and their relationship to accumulation (US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 1962); G.R. Lange, C.C. Langway and B.L. Hansen, ‘Deep core drilling in glaciers', Proceedings of the United States Army Science Conference, 1959 (West Point NY, Vol 2) (1959), 97–107. The IGY also saw the Expedition Glaciologique International au Groenlande (EGIG) team traverse the Greenland ice sheet in order to conduct systematic measurements of physical properties of snow and ice, to establish a year-round scientific station in central Greenland, and to recover short ice cores. A collective French-German-Austrian-Swiss-Danish research project, EGIG was the first large-scale European scientific cooperation in the polar regions (M. Carbonnell, A. Bauer, and M. Baussart, Expedition glaciologique internationale au groenland, photogrammetrie et glaciologie (1961)).

³⁶Henri Bader, CRREL Special Report 58: Deep core drilling. US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (1962), 1–6; Bader, ‘Polar ice and snow’; A Proposal for the Analysis of the Deep Ice Cores and Sub-ice Material, 11 June 1969, Central Subject Files, 1969–75, Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46549, Document AG-212, National Science Foundation Archives, National Archives, Washington DC [hereafter NSF-NA].

³⁷The National Science Foundation funded the drilling under Grant AG-104. See Deep Ice Cores Proposal; also Ueda & Garfield 1968, 1. ‘Grips the imagination’; Bader 1962, 6; ‘Major area’: Uwe Radok, Report of Head of Office of Polar Programs on visit to USA CRREL, 23 November 1973, Records Relating to CRREL, 1969–75, Records of the Head (Fletcher), Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46573 [hereafter Radok], NSF-NA.

³⁸Completed in 1959, Camp Century operated at full capacity until 1964, after which it was reduced to a summer camp. By 1966, the overburden pressure of ice on the subsurface cavities of Camp Century forced the facility to close (Elmer F. Clark, Camp Century - evolution of concept and history of design, construction, and performance (Hanover, NH: US Army Material Command, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 1965); Donald O. Rausch, 'Interim report, ice tunnel, Tuto area, Greenland, 1956' (submitted to Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Research Establishment, Corps of Engineers, on April 30 1957), 54).

³⁹Dansgaard's contribution to this work, and his career more broadly, are discussed in Maiken Lolck's 2006 Danish-language book Klima, kold krig og iskerner. The drilling process and technical aspects of the Century ice core project are described elsewhere (B.L. Hansen and C.C. Langway, Deep core drilling and core analysis at Camp Century, Greenland, 1961–1966. Antarctic Journal of the US (1966), 207–8; H.T. Ueda, and D.E. Garfield, CRREL Special Report 126: Drilling through the Greenland ice sheet (US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 1968); Herbert Ueda and Donald Garfield, CRREL Technical Report 231: Core drilling through the Antarctic ice sheet (US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 1969); Herbert Ueda and Donald Garfield, The USA CRREL drill for thermal coring in ice. Journal of Glaciology, 8 (53) (1969), 311–14; Langway, ‘The history of early polar ice cores’; Wright, ‘CRREL’).

⁴⁰Willi Dansgaard et al., ‘One thousand centuries of climatic record from Camp Century on the Greenland ice sheet'. Science 166 (1969), 377–81 (380). Results from the analysis of the ice core also appear in C.C. Langway, CRREL Research Report 77: Stratigraphic analysis of a deep core from Greenland (US Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 1967); C.C. Langway and B.L. Hansen, ‘Drilling through the ice cap: Probing climate for a thousand centuries'. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 26 (10) (1970), 62–6; Hansen and Langway, ‘Deep core drilling’; Dansgaard et al., ‘One thousand centuries’; Willi Dansgaard et al., ‘Oxygen isotope analysis of an ice core representing a complete vertical profile of a polar ice sheet'. In ISAGE Symposium (Hannover, USA, 1968); W. Dansgaard, S.J. Johnsen, and C.C. Langway. Ice cores and paleoclimatology. In Radiocarbon variations and absolute chronology: Proceedings and the 12th Nobel Symposium, edited by I. U. Olsson (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1970); W. Dansgaard, S.J. Johnsen, H.B. Clausen and C.C. Langway, ‘Climatic record revealed by the Camp Century ice core'. In The late Cenozoic glacial ages, edited by K. K. Turekian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971); W. Dansgaard, S.J. Johnsen, N. Reeh, N. Gundestrup, H.B. Clausen and C.U. Hammer, Climatic changes, Norsemen and modern man. Nature, 255 (1975), 24–8; W. Dansgaard and S. J. Johnsen, 'A flow model and a time scale for the ice core from Camp Century, Greenland'. Journal of Glaciology, 8 (53) (1969), 215–23.

⁴¹Dansgaard et al., ‘One thousand centuries', 378; Dansgaard et al, ‘Climatic changes', 27. Also see Nature comment, Climatic records from ice sheets, 235 (1972), 417.

⁴²For example, scientists provided climatic predictions to political bodies including the United Nations, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Energy Research and Development Administration, and the Government of the United Kingdom, among others, in the 1970s. It is an open question as to what extent scientists were pressured by political institutions to provide climatic predictions, and to what extent scientists themselves drove political demand for these predictions. Prediction of climatic futures, and specifically the relationship between scientists and the political sphere in this context, is discussed by Edwards, ‘A vast machine’; Weart, ‘Discovery’; S. Weart, ‘Global Warming, Cold War, and the Evolution of Research Plans'. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 27 (2) (1997), 319–56; James R. Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Matthias Heymann, ‘The evolution of climate ideas and knowledge'. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 1 (2010), 581–97; Matthias Heymann, Constructing evidence and trust: how did climate scientist's confidence in their models and simulations emerge? (2011); Annika E. Nilsson, ‘A changing Arctic climate: more than just weather'. In Legacies and change in polar sciences: historical, legal and political reflections on the International Polar Year, edited by J. M. Shadian and M. Tennberg (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009); Paul Warde, Making yesterday's futures: social technologies of environmental prediction (2011-in progress).

⁴³The Camp Century ice core data is used in a wide variety of scientific investigations including A.T. Wilson and C.H. Hendy, ‘Past wind strength from isotope studies'. Nature, 234 (1971), 344–5; Wayne L. Hamilton and Thomas A. Seliga, Atmospheric turbidity and surface temperature on the polar ice sheets. Nature, 235 (1972), 320–2; D. Raynaud and C. Lorius, ‘Climatic implications of total gas content in ice at Camp Century'. Nature, 243 (1973), 283–4; H.H. Lamb, 'Whither climate now?' Nature, 244 (1973), 395–7; M.K. Miles, ‘Causes of climatic change'. Nature, 254 (1975), 290–1; Robert G. Roosen, Robert S. Harrington, James Giles and Iben Browning, ‘Earth tides, volcanoes and climatic change'. Nature, 261 (1976), 680–2; J.H. Mercer, West Antarctica ice sheet and CO2 greenhouse effect: a threat of disaster. Nature, 271 (1978), 321–5; A.D. Hecht, W. Dansgaard, J.A. Eddy, S.J. Johnsen, M.A. Lange, C.C. Langway, C. Lorius, M.B. McElroy, H. Oeschger, G. Raisbeck and P. Schlosser, Long-term ice core records and global environmental change. In The environmental record in glaciers and ice sheets: Dahlem Workshop Report 8, edited by H. Oeschger and C. C. Langway (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989). Recognition of the achievement came from other parts of the scientific community, too: the front cover of the 17 October 1969 issue of Science boasted a picture of West Greenland icebergs to complement Willi Dansgaard et al.'s article One thousand centuries of climatic record from Camp Century on the Greenland ice sheet, and Dansgaard and his colleagues were invited to present their work at the 12^th Nobel Symposium.

⁴⁴Bader et al., ‘Arctic research’, 5.

⁴⁵Robert McNamara, James G. Blight and Robert K. Brigham, Argument without end: in search of answers to the Vietnam tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 349–51. The Vietcong ranks grew from approximately 5000 men in 1959 to more than 100 000 by the end of 1964 (Vincent H. Demma, ‘The US Army in Vietnam'. In American Military History (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1989). For the escalation of the Vietnam War, see also P. Lowe, The Vietnam War (Manchester, 1998); Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Larry Berman, Planning A Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam (W.W. Norton, 1982).

⁴⁶George Doumani, Federal Arctic research (a report prepared pursuant to the request of the Committee of Appropriations, United States Senate) (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1968); Owen Wilkes, US military research in Greenland (Königstein: Arktisk Institut, 1979). Also Owen Wilkes and Jan Øberg, Military research and development in Denmark and Greenland (Lund: Lund University Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1982); Philip G. Kruger (Col.), Greenland, a scientific laboratory. MG 28, I 79, vol. 107, folder 818 (Library and Archives Canada, 1965).

⁴⁷Archer, ‘United States defense areas’, 128–9.

⁴⁸Mission and Organization, 1 November 1971, Records relating to CRREL, 1969–75, Records of the Head (Fletcher), Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46573, Document CRRELR10-1-1 [hereafter, Mission and Organization], NSF-NA; Lloyd H. Cornett and Mildred W. Johnson, A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946–80 (Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, 1980). A similar situation is described by P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Matthew Farish for the Canadian North, in which new technologies and the changing strategic role of the Arctic led to a sharp decline in military activities in the region beginning in the late 1950s (P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Matthew Farish, ‘The Cold War on Canadian soil: militarizing a northern environment’, Environmental History 12 (October 2007), 920–50 (931–2)).

⁴⁹Project Iceworm: deployment of NATO MRBM's in the Greenland icecap (originally SECRET-NOFORN) (RG 59, PPS Records, Lot 60 D 121, Box 121, Folder Europe: Jan-May 1962, National Archives, Washington DC). Reprinted in Grønland under den kolde krig: dansk og amerikansk sikkerhedspolitik, 1945–68 (København, Dansk Udenrigspolitisk Institut, 1997), 312–53 (324). Also Nikolaj Petersen, The iceman that never came: ‘Project Iceworm', the search for a NATO deterrent, and Denmark, 1960–62. Scandinavian Journal of History, 33 (2008), 75–98; E.D. Weiss, Cold War under the ice: the Army's bid for a long-range nuclear role, 1959–1963. Journal of Cold War Studies, 3 (2001), 31–58.

⁵⁰Doumani, ‘Federal Arctic research’.

⁵¹Mansfield Amendment, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, US Senate, S3367 & HR 17123 (Washington DC: UG Government Printing Office, 1970), 159. The amendment gets its name from its sponsor, Senator Michael Mansfield (D-MON).

⁵²See, for example, W.D. McElroy, Office of the Director, National Science Foundation, 19 October 1971, Budget 1970–72, Records of the Polar Science Section, Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, NSF-NA. This carving out of territory between military bodies and the National Science Foundation, in which the former focused on military-specific applications of scientific research whilst the latter took care of basic research, is representative of a broader settling of military-civilian scientific patronage relationships in the late 1960s and 1970s. These relationships are discussed by Roger L. Geiger, Research and relevant knowledge: American research universities since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (Columbia Columbia University Press, 1993); Neal Lane, ‘US science and technology: An uncoordinated system that seems to work'. Technology in Society, 30 (3–4) (2008), 248–63; Daniel S. Greenberg, Science, money and politics: political triumph and ethical erosion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

⁵³‘Radically alter’, budget: Report of Committee on Polar Research ad hoc Advisory Panel on Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratories (U.S. Army), February 1972, Records Relating to CRREL, 1969–75, Records of the Head (Fletcher), Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46573 [hereafter Committee on Polar Research 1972], NSF-NA.

⁵⁴W.F. Weeks to J.O. Fletcher, National Science Foundation Funding of a Research Program at CRREL: an exploratory proposal, 10 March 1972, Records Relating to CRREL, 1969–75, Records of the Head (Fletcher), Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46573 [hereafter, Weeks-Fletcher], NSF-NA, emphasis in original; Mission and Organization.

⁵⁵Wilkes & Øberg, ‘Research and development’, 160.

⁵⁶Committee on Polar Research 1972; Weeks-Fletcher; Arctic Research Program, no date, Project Records, Deputy Head (Philip M. Smith), Records of the Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46579 [hereafter Arctic Research Program], NSF-NA; Arctic Research, no date, Project Records, Deputy Head (Philip M. Smith), Records of the Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46579 [hereafter Arctic Research], NSF-NA; Philip M. Smith to E. Hesselbjerg, 4 August 1970, Reading File, 1969–75, Records of the Polar Planning and Coordination Staff, Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46587, NSF-NA.

⁵⁷Langway, ‘The history of early polar ice cores,’ 108. For GISP, also see C.C. Langway, H. Oeschger, and W. Dansgaard, eds., Greenland ice cores: geophysics, geochemistry and environment, vol. 33 (American Geophysical Union, 1985); ‘Klima'Lolck, ; Elzinga, ‘Some aspects’; Greenland Summit Ice Cores GRIP and GISP Projects. Reprinted from the Journal of Geophysical Research 26 (1998), 315–886. American Geophysical Union. For National Science Foundation support of GISP, see A GISP Proposal for Ice Core Drilling, Ice Core Analysis and Geophysical Investigations, 1 March 1972, Contracts and Agreements, 1969–75, General Records of the Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46549, Document AG-394, NSF-NA; A Proposal for the Physical and Chemical Analysis of Polar Ice Cores and Geophysical Investigations, 23 October 1973, Contracts and Agreements, 1969–75, General Records of the Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46549, Document AG-500, NSF-NA.

⁵⁸Bader et al., ‘Arctic research,’ 2.

⁵⁹Deep holes: Radok; Invaluable: Weeks-Fletcher. Also Memorandum to Members of the National Science Board, Subject: Proposed Projects from the Office of Polar Programs, 16 February 1971, Project Records, Deputy Head (Philip M Smith), Records of the Office of Polar Programs, RG 0307, ID 46579, Document NSB-71-56, NSF-NA; Arctic Research Program.

⁶⁰Arctic Research; Arctic Research Program. In this context, the socio-professional, boundary work and discipline-construction connections between glaciology and climate science are particularly intriguing. I plan to look at this in a future paper.

⁶¹See note 40 regarding the broader climate science community. For the public sphere, see, for example, the depictions of Greenland's ice cores in The New York Times, Probing the mystery of Greenland's ice sheet (20 May 1962); The New York Times, Army serves drink cooled with ice 2000 years old (22 September 1966); Alley, ‘Two-mile time machine’; Time Magazine, Geophysics: history on the rocks (30 September 1966); Walter Sullivan, 'Into the ice age: ice drilling operation may reveal secrets a million years old' (20 May 1962) The New York Times; Walter Sullivan, History in an ice core (11 February 11 1968) The New York Times; Jared M. Diamond, Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 2006); John Roach, Greenland glaciers losing ice much faster, study says (National Geographic News, 19 February 2006); Kolbert, ‘Ice memory’.

⁶²Weeks-Fletcher.

⁶³A similar recognition of the dual role of technical and political change is noted in the context of 20th century atmospheric science by Heymann, ‘Evolution’, 194.

⁶⁴Chunglin Kwa, The rise and fall of weather modification: changes in American attitudes toward technology, nature, and society. In Changing the atmosphere: expert knowledge and environmental concern, edited by P. N. Edwards and C. A. Miller (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001), 136.