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Built deep into the interior of a remote arctic island in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago quietly lies what the press has dubbed the Doomsday Vault. First opened in February 2007 and run by the Norwegian Government, the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre, and the nonprofit Crop Trust, its goal is to maintain a stockpile of seeds as a bulwark against extinctions and potential future agricultural calamities: On 19 May 2017, Crop Trust reported that technical issues had resulted in flooding to the facility’s access tunnel: This story was propagated across social media with irresistibly shareable headlines like: The Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault Flooded. Thanks, Global Warming, leaving the impression that the supposedly failsafe vault had been ruined by one of the very forces it sought to protect against — and after less than a decade of use. This spin is not entirely accurate, however, as the vault itself was never threatened. Crop Trust clarified this in a 21 May 2017 statement: While the access tunnel was flooded, there are a number of other protective barriers between that tunnel and the actual vault, as described in a Time.com profile of the facility from April 2017: As described by the Guardian, it was this wide concrete tunnel that was breached: 2016 was an especially hot year for the Arctic, and the Spitsbergen Island had average temperatures regularly approaching temperatures 13oF (7oC) higher than normal. This allowed the deep permafrost the vault was built into — selected in part because its presence provides a free source of refrigeration — to melt more than usual. Crop Trust has stated that they remain confident in the ability of the Vault in the future, and that they are implementing improvements to protect against similar events: Speaking to the Guardian, Åsmund Asdal of the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre said:
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