Stein Leikanger
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carbonbased.bsky.social
Stein Leikanger
@carbonbased.bsky.social
220 followers 230 following 13 posts
At the pace we’re going, there is no Planet A.
Environmental strategist repairing Spaceship Earth. Background is from the post office in Pripyat, the abandoned town next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Let's communicate.
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carbonbased.bsky.social
The Arctic is melting, temperatures rise four times faster than the global average.
In the 1990s, this would be a preposterous notion.
It's reality.
The chart shows temperature rankings by month since 1979, in the Arctic. It charts a slow-motion detonation, with catastrophic consequences.
/end
The chart is from Zachary Labe's page showing how temperatures are changing in the Arctic. These are satellite measurements of air temperature, ranked by month, from 1979 to now. If the color distribution had been balanced, with dark blue and dark red evenly spread out during these years, then we would have little to worry about. What we're seeing is a slow-motion detonation, as we go from a colder to a much warmer Arctic, in the span of 45 years. The first seed vault on Svalbard was established in 1984, in an abandoned mine shaft. At the time, Svalbard really was "an Arctic desert", frozen and apparently stable. Then, the effect of adding carbon to the atmosphere manifested itself, with enormous force. The overall bluish pattern is increasingly being replaced by red, signifying that the warmer months are happening now, with greater frequency and force. It's quite possible that placing the Global Seed Vault at Svalbard was, quite simply, wrong. The hill is unstable, the climate has changed. Now, winter rains fall in what used to be unbearably cold months, the ground is shifting, the permafrost is melting, and the seed vault requires human intervention to remain stable.
December 5, 2024 at 10:51 AM
carbonbased.bsky.social
The Global Seed Vault from above.
The concrete entrance marks where the new and now narrower tunnel begins. There have been landslides at Longyearbyen, requiring the safer relocation of hundreds of buildings.
The V-shaped berm is supposed to protect against a landslide covering the entrance. /5
A satellite image of the Global Seed Vault at Longyearbyen, Svalbard. A road leads from upper left to the center of the image. A rectangular, brown structure contains the generators and equipment needed to "freeze the hill's entrance". The entrance leading into the hill is narrow. At the bottom of the image, we see a wide V-shape. This is a berm designed to keep the hill above from sliding down to cover the entrance. There have been lethal avalanches on Svalbard, as the permafrost loses its grip on the hills surrounding Longyearbyen.
December 5, 2024 at 10:51 AM
carbonbased.bsky.social
Statsbygg, charged with carrying out repairs, claimed "the artificial refrigeration will help the permafrost do its job of keeping the vault safe".
The image below is from the repairs. You see the famous tunnel entrance in the background. The new generators are housed in the foreground structure. /4
The photo is by Statsbygg, the entrepreneur charged with repairing the vault. We're in Svalbard, looking at a gently sloping hill that's been opened up. White frost and protective matting surround a large opening, artificial refrigeration is used to freeze sides of the entrance. In the middle of the image, we see the concrete structure of the famous entrance. It's boarded up with plywood, to protect it. A new tunnel was constructed between the entrance and the vault, as the old one failed under the weight of the melting hill above it. In the foreground, on the left, we see an open, dark steel structure, which houses the refrigeration generators that will maintain the vault at a low enough temperature. Originally, the cold in Svalbard was thought to make it unnecessary to use articifical refrigeration.
December 5, 2024 at 10:51 AM
carbonbased.bsky.social
The Global Seed Vault in the Arctic perfectly illustrates how inadequate our understanding is of the speed of global warming.
In the 1980s, the Svalbard Archipelago was chosen as a location because "it is an Arctic desert"; its Permafrost intact.
The vault flooded in 2016. Let's take a look. /1
Image shows headlines from major news outlets following the flooding of the vault. "Arctic stronghold of world's seeds flooded after permafrost melts". "'Doomsday' seed vault meant to survive global disasters breached by climate change".
December 5, 2024 at 10:51 AM
carbonbased.bsky.social
Blocked Lone Skum on twitter before he bought it, his launching Idiocracy IRL was too obvious to ignore.
This is what I get in a search. Bliss, and unaffected by his removal of the blocking function!
November 18, 2024 at 9:52 PM