And according to the colonel, over the last decade or so the climate had begun to degrade significantly. Each year had less sunlight, lower temperatures, more snow. The ice caps and glaciers were growing again, for the first time since the 1600’s. Spitsbergen in particular probably didn’t have more than five years left, even given their innovative adaptations. Our current projections, admittedly rough, showed the Earth completely encased in glaciers within fifty to a hundred years.