Turns out The Thing isn’t peer-reviewed

February 6, 2018 10:27 AM

I’m trying to find human population projections for Antarctica. I’d expect the projections to be climate-change-focused but other factors are welcome. Has anyone come across this?
posted by michaelh to Science & Nature (9 answers total)

Do you mean the Arctic? Antarctica has no stable human population. Everyone who stays there is a temporary resident (of varying stays) in a research station.
posted by quadrilaterals at 10:29 AM on February 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Posted too soon -- the residence pattern of these research stations is most likely linked to government funding and research/defense interest, rather than external factors like climate change.
posted by quadrilaterals at 10:31 AM on February 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah, if you're talking about climate refugees moving to Antarctica, I'm afraid you've entered the realm of science fiction. Which isn't to say it's impossible or inconceivable, but there's no extant data that could even be extrapolated from.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:35 AM on February 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yes, Antarctica. Science fiction is fine if it’s the best anyone’s come up with, but I am hoping there have at least been some educated guesses about how the treaties governing Antarctica might be exploited/renegotiated/ignored in the next 50-100 years, as well as natural growth in the researching and tourism-servicing population if nothing significant changes.
posted by michaelh at 10:40 AM on February 6, 2018

Open Culture just posted a map and brief article about what happens when the global temperature raises by four degrees. Antarctica is called out in the headline.
posted by soelo at 10:46 AM on February 6, 2018

If you haven't already, I'd start with reading some first-person accounts written by people who live and work there now - that will give you an idea of the current difficulties involved in sustaining human habitation there.

Wikipedia has a short article, Colonization of Antarctica, which might suggest a few angles for further investigation.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:52 AM on February 6, 2018

Ooo - here are some documents to dig through from the most recent meetings of the Antarctic Treaty governing body, with lots of climate change oriented stuff, from the looks of it. (Click the X under column E to read in English.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:02 AM on February 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Kim Stanley Robinson's "Antarctica" (SF Novel) has some interesting speculations. As he explains in the author's notes, Robinson was invited to visit McMurdo Research Station as part of a program they have there to bring in artists and creators to see Antarctica for themselves, and that trip inspired this work, which also inspired, in part, his Mars trilogy.

The 100 astronauts sent to Mars were trained partly in Antarctica in order to detect anyone who couldn't cope with the isolation and interdependence that the Mars trip would require. There's also a separate short story featuring those Mars trilogy characters at their Antarctica training.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:38 AM on February 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are barriers to accurate prediction. As Global Climate Change advances, there may be riots, wars, etc. for food. There have always been wars about food, especially when there are crop failures for any reason (pests, weather, drought). The US is blessed with lots and lots of arable land and food surpluses for many crops. Most countries do not have such bounty. It's hard to know how Climate will Change, but I think the result be be reduction in populations due to wars and famines sooner than Antarctica being livable. All that penguin crap, maybe it will be fertile, but who knows?
posted by theora55 at 1:37 PM on February 6, 2018