“The brutality of nature used to bring joy, but now it scares people,” says Holmen. ![]() “We identified ourselves as people who could ‘stand the storm.’”īut that confidence has been replaced by anxiety. In Longyearbyen’s case, the avalanches “have changed the mood in the village quite dramatically,” says Holmen. Assumptions that present day climate change “is not so serious,” have been proven wrong, he says, adding that the increasing strength and frequency of extreme events “needs attention.” Kim Holmen, of the Norwegian Polar Institute, says that Longyearbyen’s story is a “forewarning” for other parts of the world. He says it is vital to reduce manmad-e greenhouse gas emissions to prevent carbon release from happening. “Permafrost holds an immense amount of carbon – enough to double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere” says Frans-Jan Parmentier, an Arctic climate scientist who conducts research at a station just outside Longyearbyen. Perhaps most worrying of all, the thawing permafrost could fuel further global warming. “But now, because the ice disconnection occurs earlier and lasts longer, the bears run into food shortages.”Īccording to the new report, the average temperature in Longyearbyen is predicted to rise by 7☌ to 10☌, and rainfall by 40% to 65%, by the end of the century, depending on the level of global carbon emissions. The three main industries on Svalbard are coal mining, tourism, and research. Unable to hunt for ring seals on the ice floes, in the past the bears would eke out the warmer months by raiding eggs on the cliffs. Svalbard, where the vault is located, is situated in the Arctic Ocean. “If the bears miss the ride, they are stranded on the shore for the summer.” “The floating sea ice disconnects from the land in the summer,” explains Holmen. When rain freezes and forms ice, Svalbard's reindeer are at risk of starvation. The reindeer are unable to break through the ice to reach the grass below. “When the water hits the ground, it freezes,” he says. But snow is increasingly giving way to rain. “During winter, reindeer stomp the ground with their front legs to get the snow away in order to graze,” he says. Land-bound animals cannot relocate and starving reindeer are now a common sight, says Holmen. Atlantic cod have arrived in their place, swimming north to the warming waters, says Holmen. Polar cod, which used to swim in the fjord, have disappeared along with the ice on which they depend. Speaking in February, he said: “At this time of year, we used to have a meter of ice on the fjord, I could see from my window. The ongoing civil war in Syria has led to the first-ever withdrawal from the Svalbard 'doomsday' Global Seed Vault, a giant storage unit for plant seeds thats tucked into the side of a. Kim Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute and a resident of Longyearbyen, has been observing the former coal mining town’s changing landscape for over three decades. Pipes containing a coolant were threaded through the soil, and a freezing mat laid on top of the tunnel to help the permafrost stay frozen. Statsbygg also transferred heat-producing electrical equipment from inside the tunnel to a separate facility and dug ditches to divert meltwater. “We replaced the steel entrance tunnel with a waterproof concrete tunnel,” says Aschim. Statsbygg undertook 100 million Norwegian krone ($11.7 million) of reconstruction work, more than double the original cost of the structure. ![]() "For Mexico, it's important documents, even from the Inca period, which is a very important historical memory."īut Bjerkestrand said the deposit could be any kind of data, from meteorological observations to manufacturing plans to classical literature.Construction work on the seed vault's new service building and tunnel entrance. "In their case, is documents, different kinds of documents from their national histories, like, for example, the Brazilian Constitution," Bjerkestrand said. So far, the National Archives of Brazil and Mexico have sent data to be stored in the underground vault, Bjerkestrand said. The company claims it could be preserved for up to 1,000 years. The data Piql has tested would be preserved for at least 500 years, according to Norway's national broadcaster NRK. According to Bjerkestrand, the films' data is like "carved in stone."įilms also allow for long-term preservation. Once printed, the physical rolls of film cannot be edited, nor are they at risk of remote attacks (as digital data might be). Bjerkestrand explained that the data to be preserved would be sent to the film writers in the same way data is sent to an office printer, using a secure IT infrastructure (i.e., internet, VPN, or other data-transfer system). Now, the company is using their analog storage technique to take on data preservation for the world. Piql was founded in 2002 as a company that converted films from digital to analog.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |