Doomsday Seed Vault Flooded after Permafrost melts

a reply to: EchoesInTime

Some vault. Bunch of idiots. They got lucky this time let's not have a next time. You'd think they would have thought of water getting in when they built it.

a reply to: EchoesInTime

This is disturbing.

The seed vault was designed to protect the seeds within from being harmed, and it appears to have done that successfully, in that the actual secure storage section does not appear to have been breached at any stage. However, it should be of some significant concern to anyone reading this article, that a building designed by environmentally conscious people, who are familiar with the threat that climate change poses, so familiar with it that they decided to secure crop plants against possible extinction level events in a vault at all, has been threatened by meltwater.

The reason I say that this should concern everyone reading this article, is that we are not dealing with a design by some climate change skeptic clod, with all the scientific understanding one expects from a pet rock. We are talking about a building designed by people who know the threats we face as a species and as an ecology, very well indeed. This means, that they will have had access during the design phase, to climate change projections, among other data, which will have been worked into the design to ensure that it will perform under whatever conditions prevail. That the melt water has become such a problem to those running the site, means that the speed of melt in the location is MUCH higher than the projections suggested it ought to be, otherwise they would never have built the thing in its current location.

If melt water is threatening even the havens built by those who best understand environmental concerns, then it is time to take this crap just a little more seriously than some of us have been.

Seed vaults and other genetic banks are a good idea, but more work should be done fixing the problems that make such vaults a necessary precaution. The biosphere project was a good idea too, so what's up with that lately?

Built for doomsday, can't handle a simple flood!


This deserves a meme!

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

They need to modify the existing facility to cope with the possibility of being submerged. Probably have to build a submarine hull around it somehow, with air locks for access in the event that things go seriously pear shaped, climate wise.

With regard to that possibility, the simple fact of the matter is that although the technology exists now to take many nations completely out of the oil market, there are too many people profiting massively from the mining, refining and exporting of oil, for the newer technologies to be adopted to an extensive enough degree, to make a significant difference to how the climate moves on from this point. Add to this the fact that places like Yellowstone and Mount Saint Helens are either fit to burst or building pressure to do so at some stage, and you have to recognise that as far as the climate goes, things are only going to get worse from here.

Mitigation efforts will have to turn to reconfiguring the infrastructure of nations, in such a way as to cope with changing sea levels, drastically altered weather patterns, temperature ranges, and the like, just to make the future survivable in the short term. While we should still be looking to eliminate as high a percentage of the particulates we throw out into the atmosphere as possible, we should also be thinking about preparing to meet the challenges our folly will cause us next, because failure to do both these things, will surely be our downfall.

So stupid! cheap vault.
just a tunnel with doors.

in the video she says they dont open the boxes.
they done know what is really in the boxes!!!

a reply to: EchoesInTime

It's supposed to last for a long time but they did not foresee an ice age ending like it always does?

There are only codes instead of names on those boxes. They said it's all okay you can check the names in internet. I didn't know that internet would survive apocalyptic events. Oh well...
I was expecting not only names but also instructions how and where to grow specific plant, etc but oh...they will have internet in case of shtf

A doomsday vault that does not take into account that climate may change and drainage

I'd say the problem was the people managing it.

It is a government project.

That explains a lot.

Fake news.

“Flooding is probably not quite the right word to use in this case,” says Cary Fowler, who helped create the seed vault. “In my experience, there’s been water intrusion at the front of the tunnel every single year.”

“The tunnel was never meant to be water tight at the front, because we didn’t think we would need that,” Fowler says. “What happens is, in the summer the permafrost melts, and some water comes in, and when it comes in, it freezes. It doesn’t typically go very far.”

“If there was a worst case scenario where there was so much water, or the pumping systems failed, that it made its way uphill to the seed vault, then it would encounter minus 18 [degrees celsius] and freeze again. Then there’s another barrier [the ice] for entry into the seed vault,” Fowler says. In other words, any water that floods into the tunnel has to make it 100 meters downhill, then back uphill, then overwhelm the pumping systems, and then manage not to freeze at well-below-freezing temperatures. Otherwise, there's no way liquid is getting into the seed bank—so the seeds are probably safe.

source

a reply to: AdmireTheDistance

....Otherwise, there's no way liquid is getting into the seed bank—so the seeds are probably safe.

Still, the word "probably" should not be part of a disaster recovery plan. They should be put in a sealed container.

a reply to: AdmireTheDistance

reading your source - i have to wonder :

after 20 years of abandonment - how much equipment would be needed to get from the surface to the seed vault ?

"There must not be a mine shaft gap!!!"

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: AdmireTheDistance

reading your source - i have to wonder :

after 20 years of abandonment - how much equipment would be needed to get from the surface to the seed vault ?

That's a really good question.

Did any of you actually read the article? The water never made it to the vault it just got into the tunnel leading to the vault. The vault itself is waterproof.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Makes you wonder ifn any of em know wtf they're even talking about, eh?

a reply to: essentialtremors

Although one could be forgiven for asking that question, I think it is perhaps a little short sighted to ask it, without qualifying precisely who it is you are talking about.

You see, the site manager is probably VERY on the ball, because one does not ordinarily pass into the sort of work which requires familiarity with survival in near polar conditions, without having some raw smarts. However, at the administrative end, remote from the location itself, the member of the government responsible for the up keep of the site and funding for the same, is probably only as useless as any other member of any other government, that is to say, completely and fundamentally incompetent at best, and actively undermining their own programs for material profit somehow at worst.

You could have the most qualified, competent, diligent individuals ever assembled in one place running the actual site, and still, unless the administrative stuff that happens in government is done PERFECTLY, there will always be a problem that raw smarts on the ground simply cannot solve.

This seed vault is one of many unique seed saver programs. I am glad those living seeds were not destroyed.

15. Svalbard Global Seed Vault CGIAR and conservationist Cary Fowler founded the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 2008. The vault, also known as the "doomsday vault," rests more than 1,100 kilometers south of the North Pole. Seeds are stored in permafrost conditions, approximately -18 degrees Celsius, to ensure preservation.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault acts as a sort of insurance policy for other seed banks around the world, only accessing the seeds if the original is destroyed. The Seed Vault can hold up to 2.25 billion seeds in total, equaling 500 seeds of some 4.5 million crop varieties.

Priority for space in the vault is given to seeds that can ensure food production and sustainable agriculture, and the collection is primarily composed of seeds from developing countries.

The seed vault is managed by the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center.

www.agprofessional.com...

The engineers may need to study permafrost melt and perhaps do some simple landscaping around the vault because permafrost is melting.

www.scientificamerican.com...

Heavy seasonal rains last fall and this spring were the major cause.