THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!

4 Jul 10 - Seven U.S. Congressmen, led by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), spent their 4th of July weekend hand-delivering seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Containing seeds from more than 525,000 crop varieties, the self-proclaimed "Doomsday Vault" was built as a back-up storage facility to protect world food supplies in the event of a devastating global catastrophe.

According to Wikipedia, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 km (810 mi) from the North Pole. Its location 130 metres (430 ft) above sea level will ensure that the site remains dry even if the ice caps melt.

See entire article:
http://welcometoafreeworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/7-congressman-deliver-seeds-to-arctic.html
Thanks to Stephanie Relfe for this link

This is crazy!
What if the ice cap starts growing instead of melting?

That seed vault could be buried beneath hundreds - if not thousands - of feet of ice.

Don't laugh. Spitsbergen has been buried beneath the ice at least 50 times in the past three million years.

"The sculpturing of Spitsbergen's landscape with its fjords, bays, valleys, cirques, mountains, horns and arêtes was largely carried out by repeated glaciations during the Quaternary," says this article on Svalbard geology. 

"No one knows how many glaciations have occurred on Svalbard since the onset of the glacial period some 3 MY ago, but there may have been 50 or more glaciations! The preservation of Quarternary sediments is poor since subsequent glaciations have removed signs of earlier glaciations."

"Glaciers expanded considerably during the so-called Little Ice Age, which culminated on Svalbard during the first decade of the 20th Century."

That's only 300 years ago!

There is every reason to believe that it will happen again. And if astrophysicists are correct, that we're headed into another Little Ice Age, then we could already be seeing the beginning stages.

"A significant number of glaciers in Svalbard are surging-type glaciers," the article continues. "From time to time they advance with extraordinary high velocity, up to several km during a period of 3-6 years. This behaviour is characteristic for at least 30% of all glaciers in Svalbard. Possibly, up to 60% of all Svalbard glaciers surge from time to time, with a recurrent interval of 50-100 years."

Maybe Bill Gates (one of the major financiers of the Doomsday Vault, says Wikipedia) should consider constructing another storage facility in a warmer location.