![]() So, they put it in a region scientists say will warm faster than the rest of the world. (Ironically, global warming was one of the threats the Norwegians wanted to hedge against. Currently, there are between 800,000 and 900,000 seed samples in the vault. The seed vault, also referred to as the “doomsday” vault, is built 400 feet into a mountain slope in Spitsbergen island. The Norwegian government opened the seed vault in 2008 as a “ backstop” against “the challenge of natural or man-made disasters.” The vault contains more than 4,000 plant species from around the world, which sit sealed in chambers chilled to around zero degrees Fahrenheit. It might not help the road leading up to the seed vault, but the seeds themselves would be ok,” Fowler said. “We found that the seed vault was somewhere between a five and seven story building above that point. What would happen to the seed vault?” Fowler said. So, very high sea levels and the world’s largest Tsunami. “We did this calculation if all the ice in the world melted - Greenland, Arctic, Antarctic, everything - and then we had the world’s largest recorded tsunami right in front of the seed vault. Designers have to be careful when building in the Arctic because permafrost melt can make buildings unstable.Įven if all the ice caps melted, the seed vault would be totally fine, Fowler said. Permafrost is sensitive to temperature spikes and artificial developments. In fact, building the tunnel itself made the surrounding permafrost more vulnerable to melting. “What happens is, in the summer the permafrost melts, and some water comes in, and when it comes in, it freezes. ![]() “The tunnel was never meant to be watertight at the front, because we didn’t think we would need that,” Fowler said. “In my experience, there’s been water intrusion at the front of the tunnel every single year,” Fowler said.įowler explained the tunnel was built along a mountain slope, and at the base two pumping stations remove water that gets into the entrance - the entrance was not made to be watertight. ![]() Popular Science spoke to Cary Fowler, one of the vault’s designers, who told them “looding is probably not quite the right word to use in this case.” ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |