Breaking Earth News: NorwayThe seed bank will not be affected by rising global temperatures
Feb 09. 2007
The design for an arctic "doomsday vault" to save seeds in the event of a global catastrophe has been unveiled in Norway.
The vault, a repository for seeds that could be used to re-establish crops obliterated in a major disaster, is specifically designed to survive the effects of climate change, its designers said on Friday. Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said the structure would stay frozen for hundreds of years even if temperatures rise. It will be carved into the permafrost of a mountain near the North Pole so it will keep functioning if its refrigeration system fails. "In the midnight sun, it will look like a large diamond," said Magnus Bredeli Tveiten, project manager at the Directorate of Public Construction and Property. In winter, when the sun does not rise above the horizon, "it will glow into the darkness," he said.
The vault, a repository for seeds that could be used to re-establish crops obliterated in a major disaster, is specifically designed to survive the effects of climate change, its designers said on Friday. Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said the structure would stay frozen for hundreds of years even if temperatures rise. It will be carved into the permafrost of a mountain near the North Pole so it will keep functioning if its refrigeration system fails. "In the midnight sun, it will look like a large diamond," said Magnus Bredeli Tveiten, project manager at the Directorate of Public Construction and Property. In winter, when the sun does not rise above the horizon, "it will glow into the darkness," he said.
