Ungava and the Bomb

The word Ungava comes from the Inuit term for "toward the open water".

Today, many people are unaware just how literal that term could have been. In 1946, as the Cold War set in, some Brainiacs south of the border and in Britain had a brilliant idea that makes the hair at the back of your neck stand straight up. They thought that a good way transform the wasteland of the Arctic into a productive, friendly place of American domination was to detonate atomic bombs in strategic locations to get rid of all that pesky ice. No, really, we're serious... and some of them were, too.

The Spring 1988 edition of CHE-MUN reprinted the whole article and it provides a true glimpse of the mindset of the victors of WWII and that the generation of our parents and grandparents were prone to fits of lunacy.

The Bomb

By WALLACE W. ASHLEY and ELMER V. SWAN

Will the atomic bomb and the United Nations combine to make a world of beauty and industry out of what is now but frozen waste?

"Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it". So quipped Mark Twain, with perfect truth, in the years just before the dawn of the atomic era.

Now something can be done about the weather, however -- by using atomic energy to perform a gigantic "defrosting" operation on old Mother earth's northern refrigerator. Professor Julian Huxley has mentioned this possibility, and touched off a discussion on the feasibility of such a project and its benefits to mankind.

Most of our weather comes directly out of the North. Eliminate or modify the influences that make that weather, and the climate of our entire northern hemisphere would undergo radical changes. Rid the polar region of the vast ice-sheet and you would remove the occasional cold snaps that freeze water pipes as far south as St. Louis and Washington.

The vast wastelands north of the Arctic Circle would be opened up to mining and agriculture. Intercontinental airlines using intermediate refueling bases could fly the Great Circle route regularly. Warm-water ports, open the year round, could become a reality along Hudson Bay, Siberia's Arctic shores and the White Sea.

Can the Arctic ice be eliminated? Huxley believes this age-old dream of scientists and economists has come much closer to realization with the arrival of atomic energy. The terrific heat generated by nuclear fission would melt large areas of ice. A series of well-placed atomic blasts would cover an area great enough to make the results effective. Whether the "bombs" should be dropped from planes, as in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or whether towers should be constructed for remote control operation, as was done in the original test in the New Mexico desert, would be determined by a commission of scientists and economists.

The area concerned is extensive. The greatest single expanse of ice-covered land north of the Arctic Circle is Greenland, the source of the icebergs that harass North Atlantic shipping during the winter and summer months. West of Greenland are numerous islands held fast in the grip of year-round ice. Northern Alaska is icebound months at a time. Upper Siberia is bitterly cold, as American seamen on the Murmansk run can attest.

Cartographers believe destruction of the ice-sheet would enable them to get full data for the great uncharted areas now appearing only as white space on the Arctic map. It is an interesting fact that the center of the floating ice-pack is not at the North Pole but at 83 ° 50' North Latitude and 160o West Longitude, about 430 miles below. This center is well-named the Pole of Inaccessibility.

A simple computation will demonstrate that sufficient uranium is available for an Arctic de-iceing project. Available also is the agency that could initiate and supervise it -- the United Nations Organization. The burden of financing would be the obligation of all nations, since climatic benefits would be worldwide. The resultant change in the ocean's level would be felt slightly on every coastline around the globe, another reason for co-operation on an international basis. No accurate estimate can be made as to the cost involved, but many meteorologists agree the project would pay for itself many times over.

Once destroyed, the polar ice is not likely to accumulate again, since oceanographers assert that ice-sheets form only when each winter's accumulation of ice fails to melt. The salinity of sea water keep ice from forming until the temperature of the water falls to 29o; below that point pancake ice forms, but it does not increase excessively in one winter - never more than 10 feet -- and it usually melts the next summer. The concern is with the ice-sheet that accumulated during past ages.

Supporting the theory that the ice-sheet would not re-form, Dr. Walter H. Bucher, professor of geology at Columbia University, likens the polar ice to a "common cold" affecting the earth in its "head" and "feet", producing what he considers an unnatural condition. Dr. Bucher is cautious about the feasibility of an ice-blasting project, but believes that removal of all the polar ice would result in a temperate climate north of the Arctic Circle, and that removal of a major part would modify the extreme cold of the winter there and restore vegetation in the cleared areas.

Geologists believe blasting the Arctic ice might pay for itself in the possible discovery of new deposits of uranium, the mineral now required for nuclear fission. Signs point to the existence of coal, natural gas, cryolite, pitchblende and marble. Cryolite is now mined in Greenland and shipped to the United States for the production of aluminum. Marble is quarried in Greenland. New oil deposits may be unearthed. Radium-bearing ore is mined on Great Bear Lake in Canada. Gold very likely exists in the Arctic, as it does in Alaska and northern Siberia.

Alaska proved popular with servicemen and many plan to return and make their homes there. Transferring Alaska's climate to the far north would leave a large region to settlement and agricultural development. Construction of highways, railroads, airports and the building of towns and cities would provide a new frontier, a new market for the world's industrial goods and a new source of food and raw materials.

The danger of inundating major ports or extensive areas of shoreline is considered remote. The mean sea level is believed to have risen about 300 feet as the Great Glacier retreated from northwest Europe and the Ohio and Missouri river valleys to its present Arctic lair.

Working out the mechanical details of an Arctic de-icing project will require tact as well as time. More than one nation can be expected to object, fearing encroachment by the ocean on their marginal lands. Others may demand a share of the Arctic territory if it becomes productive and profitable. Some might even question the possible ill effects that atomic blasts concentrated in one area might have upon the earth and its orbit.

But the two great developments of World War II -- the control over nuclear energy and the creation of the United Nations Organization-may yet be linked in the spectacular job of melting the Arctic ice.