Go inside the vault holding our doomsday food supply 02:41
Story highlights
- Water seeps roughly 15 meters in to a tunnel at the entrance of the seed vault
- Preventive measures will include building waterproof walls inside the tunnel entrance
(CNN)Unseasonably
warm temperatures last fall caused water to breach the entrance to the
Arctic's so-called "Doomsday" seed vault, one of humanity's last hopes
after a global catastrophe, the company that manages the vault said last
week.
The Global Seed Vault
is beneath the icy permafrost of Svalbard, midway between Norway and
the North Pole. Carved into the side of a mountain, the vault holds more
than 500 million seeds from around the globe that could be used to
recreate food supplies.
The seeds
were unharmed by the water breach. Hege Njaa Aschim, a spokeswoman for
the management company, Statsbygg, said water seeped only about 15
meters in to part of an access tunnel during the "very unusual warm and
rainy October."
"We have seen changes; the ground is looser and the permafrost has not settled as planned," Aschim said Friday.
She
said the management team, along with climate scientists from University
Centre in Svalbard, don't know if the event was part of a long-term
cycle or if it will escalate. But "we will not take any chances," Aschim
said.
Remediation
efforts include removing power transformers from the entrance of the
tunnel, allowing fewer people into the tunnel, and building waterproof
walls inside the tunnel entrance, Aschim said.
The
permafrost acts like nature's refrigerator. Even if the power fails,
the temperature inside would eventually stabilize at -8 degrees Celsius
(17.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which is low enough to preserve the vault's
contents for decades.
Aschim said
media headlines citing global warming as the cause of the permafrost
melt were speculation, but that is one of the theories scientists are
investigating.
The Global Seed
Vault opened in 2008 as a way to protect and preserve seeds in case of
worldwide agricultural calamity. The seeds' genetic traits make them
vital if a species of plant is wiped out by war, drought or floods. For
example, Australian wild rice is resilient to pests and disease.
The
Norwegian government owns the vault, which is built of angular
concrete. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food handles the
administration.
In October 2015, seeds were withdrawn for the first time, because of the Syrian Civil War.
Scientists
from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry
Areas, who fled their base in Aleppo, Syria, for a new home in Lebanon,
asked for the return of many of their seeds. The scientists planned to
plant and regenerate them, and resume their decadeslong research.
No comments:
Post a Comment