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Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice melts

Writer's picture: APECS BelgiumAPECS Belgium

When in 2018 the crew and passengers of the icebreaker ship ‘50 Years of Victory’ planted a time capsule in the ice floe at the north pole, they didn’t expect the future to catch up with them as quickly as it did. The time capsule filled with letters, poems, photographs, badges, beer mats, a menu, wine corks, … washed upon the shore in Donegal, Ireland only two years later. It is estimated that the capsule travelled 2,300 miles before it was found by two locals. The local surfers where a bit suspicious at first thinking they found a bomb or an urn with somebody’s ashes. Only after translating the inscription on the metal cylinder with the help of a Russian friend they realized what they had bumped into. The crew that planted the capsule, were astonished when they found out the time capsule had already melted from the ice, they expected it to take at least 30 years. The Arctic is warming at an alarming rate, only in the past decade temperatures have risen by 0.75°C (Post et al 2019)1 and the sea ice extent is decreasing every year (Guarino et al 2020)2. Again this story confronts us with the harsh reality of climate change.

Would you like to read the full story or discover what the crew wrote in the letter?

Credit: Picture from the article

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