Ecosystems there won’t necessarily fare all too well. Trees are drying up because they aren’t used to that dryness/heat. New trees will take time to grow and they don’t necessarily support the same species.
The mix of species you used to have that lived in a balanced way is being disturbed by various invasive species.
I’m not saying those ecosystems will necessarily collapse, but there is a nonzero risk that they might.
Tundras aren’t going to be all that liveable just because the temperature is a bit nicer. They’ll still get very dark in the winter. Like 24-hour darkness, in some of it. Some people thrive, some people cope, some people go batshit crazy when daylight hours drop below about 4 hours a day.
That’s actually the easy part. Most tundra is sitting on top of permafrost. I worked on low latitude tundra for one summer and if my experience there is representative, melting permafrost is going to turn a lot of tundra into swampland for a long time.
Even if I’m wrong about the tundra turning into swampland, there isn’t really all that much room. Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude.
The tree line is moving pole-wards thanks to global warming; the gain is less than what’s lost by the desert line moving pole-wards, but it’s something.
Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude
Realistically, you need less than 1m² of terrain per person if you stack them in high enough buildings. Look at how China is doing it.
I’m glad I’m old enough to not have to consider living at the population density you suggest. I find the population density of Saskatchewan to be quite enough. I lived in a small city (Saskatoon) for 40 years and the last 10 were flat out miserable. The first 30 were tolerable only because we escaped to nature every weekend.
I’d imagine places like Svalbard. Technically it’s inhabitable now, and has been for decades but it’s the most Northern year round sustained population on the globe.
Further North is Arctic tundra and there isn’t a sustained population. Maybe he’s referring to areas like that.
Though I will say that back in 2019 I saw an article about how every winter a bunch of Reindeer in Svalbard die due to climate change. As the spring rolls in and snow melts, Reindeer corpses are left behind in the fields 🥺.
Ecosystems there won’t necessarily fare all too well. Trees are drying up because they aren’t used to that dryness/heat. New trees will take time to grow and they don’t necessarily support the same species.
The mix of species you used to have that lived in a balanced way is being disturbed by various invasive species.
I’m not saying those ecosystems will necessarily collapse, but there is a nonzero risk that they might.
I’m not sure what the future may bring.
I predict a lot of uninhabitable zones will become habitable while habitable zones will become uninhabitable.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to survival will be the ability to migrate to these new habitable zones.
What uninhabitable zones are you looking at?
Tundras, such as in Canada, Russia, and Norway.
I suppose that’s true- had kinda forgotten those regions existed honestly.
Tundras aren’t going to be all that liveable just because the temperature is a bit nicer. They’ll still get very dark in the winter. Like 24-hour darkness, in some of it. Some people thrive, some people cope, some people go batshit crazy when daylight hours drop below about 4 hours a day.
That’s actually the easy part. Most tundra is sitting on top of permafrost. I worked on low latitude tundra for one summer and if my experience there is representative, melting permafrost is going to turn a lot of tundra into swampland for a long time.
Even if I’m wrong about the tundra turning into swampland, there isn’t really all that much room. Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude.
The tree line is moving pole-wards thanks to global warming; the gain is less than what’s lost by the desert line moving pole-wards, but it’s something.
Realistically, you need less than 1m² of terrain per person if you stack them in high enough buildings. Look at how China is doing it.
I’m glad I’m old enough to not have to consider living at the population density you suggest. I find the population density of Saskatchewan to be quite enough. I lived in a small city (Saskatoon) for 40 years and the last 10 were flat out miserable. The first 30 were tolerable only because we escaped to nature every weekend.
I’d imagine places like Svalbard. Technically it’s inhabitable now, and has been for decades but it’s the most Northern year round sustained population on the globe.
Further North is Arctic tundra and there isn’t a sustained population. Maybe he’s referring to areas like that.
Though I will say that back in 2019 I saw an article about how every winter a bunch of Reindeer in Svalbard die due to climate change. As the spring rolls in and snow melts, Reindeer corpses are left behind in the fields 🥺.
The wildfires that will consume the Siberian wilderness when it thaws will likely change opinions on living there