(Right now, the Arctic is experiencing record warmth for winter. Though permafrost is by definition supposed to stay frozen, it didn't. It's supposed to stay frozen for 200 years, even if the power goes out.īut in May of 2017, melting permafrost caused caused a glacier-like flow of water to freeze inside the tunnel. The five doors are only opened for deposits, when seeds are carried down the long tunnel to a chamber kept at -18 degrees Celsius. More polar bears than people wander around outside. The frozen and dried seeds stored in the Doomsday Vault. More than one million types of crop seeds are stored inside including wheat, rice, maize, corn, peas and beans. The vault is buried in permafrost in a mountain on an isolated island in the northernmost place in the world that has scheduled flights. Deep inside a frozen mountain close to the North Pole is a secret vault of seeds that could one day feed the world if we run out of food after a natural or man-made disaster. Last year, it was also discovered that the seed bank is more vulnerable than it might seem. ICARDA returned the samples to the vault in 2017. It's fortunate that Svalbard had the seeds that were needed. In 2015, Syria's ICARDA seed bank withdrew samples from the vault - a first - so it could restore its collection after sustaining damage during war. Over the past few years, several reasons to upgrade the facility have become clear.įor one, the vault has already been needed. Several days ago, the government announced an overhaul that they plan to begin shortly, which will involve spending 100 million Norwegian Krone ($12,779,000) to seriously beef up the vault. But given its increasingly important role amid mounting climate change threats, the Norwegian government wants to upgrade the facilities. The vault was officially opened in 2008, and originally cost about $9 million. New specimens were brought in from seed banks in Australia, Kenya, the US, Costa Rica, and other places around the globe. On Monday, more than 76,000 seed samples were added to the storage space, which is opened for new deposits a few times a year. If things go really wrong due to climate change, nuclear war, or some other kind of global disaster, any place in the world should be able to withdraw seeds for whatever crops they need to start re-growing.Īs of February 26, seeds from more than a million crops are now stored in the vault. The doomsday vault that's meant to be home to specimens from every known crop on the planet looks like it's getting an upgrade - and not a moment too soon.Īdministered by the government of Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is meant to be a resource that could come to humanity's rescue.
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