--- description: Norway needs to spend roughly $12.7 million to upgrade its “doomsday” seed vault title: Climate Change May Flood Norway’s Doomsday Seed Vault image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte44834cffeade417/698929024ee262a84e311058/norway.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Norway's Underground Doomsday Seed Vault Is Under Threat From Climate Change by [Flora Carr](/author/flora-carr/) ## Flora Carr Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 27, 2018 12:51 PM CUT  A general view of the entrance of the international gene bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), outside Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Norway, on February 29, 2016. A general view of the entrance of the international gene bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), outside Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Norway, on February 29, 2016.JUNGE, HEIKO—AFP/Getty Images by [Flora Carr](/author/flora-carr/) ## Flora Carr Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 27, 2018 12:51 PM CUT [Norway](http://time.com/5168048/norway-olympics-medals-winter-games-skiiing/ "undefined") plans to spend roughly $12.7 million to upgrade its “doomsday” seed vault, the world’s largest repository built to protect crops and plants from natural and man-made disasters. The Scandinavian country announced on Monday the new investment, after melting permafrost caused by [unseasonably warm temperatures](http://time.com/5156775/climate-change-paris-agreement-research/ "undefined") risked flooding the vault last year. The Norwegian government said that the upgrades will include a new concrete access tunnel and a service building to house “emergency power and refrigerating units and other electrical equipment that emits heat through the tunnel,” _The Verge_ [reported](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17052690/doomsday-seed-vault-upgrade-13-million "undefined"). According to its official [website](https://www.croptrust.org/our-work/svalbard-global-seed-vault/ "undefined"), the vault requires a temperature of -18ºC “for optimal storage of the seeds.” The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, roughly 620 miles from the North Pole. It was established in 2008, and serves as the primary backup for the world’s other seed banks. “It is a great and important task to safeguard all the genetic material that is crucial to global food security,” Jon Georg Dale, Norway’s minister of agriculture and food, said in a [statement](https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/the-government-proposes-to-allocate-100-million-nok-to-upgrade-the-svalbard-global-seed-vault/id2590668/ "undefined"). The vault has a capacity for 4.5 million varieties of crops, with a maximum of 2.5 billion seeds. The seed vault currently holds more than 890,000 samples, which originate from nearly every country in the world. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5177165/climate-change-threatens-norway-seed-vault/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5177165/climate-change-threatens-norway-seed-vault/"},"headline":"Norway's Underground Doomsday Seed Vault Is Under Threat From Climate Change","datePublished":"2018-02-27T12:51:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:27:05.635Z","description":"Norway needs to spend roughly $12.7 million to upgrade its “doomsday” seed vault","url":"https://time.com/5177165/climate-change-threatens-norway-seed-vault/","keywords":["climate change","global warming","norway","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte44834cffeade417/698929024ee262a84e311058/norway.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Flora Carr","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/flora-carr/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte44834cffeade417/698929024ee262a84e311058/norway.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"NORWAY-SEED-VAULT-SCIENCE","caption":"NORWAY-SEED-VAULT-SCIENCE","creditText":"JUNGE, HEIKO—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5177165/climate-change-threatens-norway-seed-vault/","name":"Norway's Underground Doomsday Seed Vault Is Under Threat From Climate Change"}}]}] ```