'Doomsday' seed vault gets makeover as Arctic heats up
Designed to withstand a nuclear missile hit, the world's biggest seed vault, nestled deep inside an Arctic mountain, is undergoing a makeover as rising temperatures melt the permafrost meant to protect it.
Dubbed the "Noah's Ark" of food crops, the Global Seed Vault is buried inside a former coal mine on Svalbard, a remote Arctic island in a Norwegian archipelago around 1,000 kilometres (650 miles) from the North Pole.
Opened in 2008, the seed bank plays a key role in preserving the world's genetic diversity: it is home to more than a million varieties of seeds, offering a safety net in case of natural catastrophe, war, climate change, disease or manmade disasters.
photo credit: Global Crop Diversity Trust