# Tropical Oasis at the South Pole **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875 "2013-12-21T03:38:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/1 "2013-12-21T03:38:30Z")
A few years ago I had a dream. Somebody had somehow converted a small patch of Antarctica, centred on the South Pole, into a little tropical paradise. It wasn’t terribly big, maybe a circle with a radius of say 5km ish. Within most of it you could hardly tell, at a quick glance, that you WEREN’T in the Amazon. Temperature, vegetation, screeching birds and monkeys, humidity all checked out. But when you were near the boundary you could feel a slight chill, and you could go to the edge and look out over desolate frozen wastes before turning back and jumping into a pool by a waterfall to get frisky with the monkeys, if you’re into that sort of thing. So anyway, if I was an absolute dictator of the world and wanted to turn this dream into a MLK-style ‘Dream’, how would I do it? FTR I am assuming that the rest of Earth (and in particular the rest of Antarctica) stays the same, or as much as possible anyway. So no moving the Earth closer to the sun, no tipping its axis 90 degrees, no runaway greenhouse effect allowed. Also, no existing Amundsen-Scott station, International Treaties, environmentalists and so on. And infinite money of course. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/2 "2013-12-21T03:42:17Z")
Neat idea. I would start by considering what we do today with respect to artificially cold environments. Refrigerators, freezers, indoor ice-skating rinks in the middle of summer, etc. If we can get a small area artificially cold, it stands to reason we could do the opposite and make a small area artificially hot or humid. Are we allowed to enclose the area in a physical greenhouse or does it have to be open to the air? ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/3 "2013-12-21T03:43:59Z")
So to get the ball rolling, I suppose I’d start with soil and temperature. If I dig a disc out of the ice sheet, 5km radius, how deep should it be? I guess I’d have rock at the bottom, then… soil, then… er, plants and stuff (I am not a geologist obviously). Temperature - and light while I’m at it. Hmm. Big mirrors in space to focus sunlight on the South Pole? I know they couldn’t be geostationary (I have done SOME physics) so maybe a procession of a few dozen of them, orbiting so as one goes out of range, another comes in? Probably can’t afford a very long night, maybe just a couple of hours. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/4 "2013-12-21T03:46:39Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Neat idea. > > Are we allowed to enclose the area in a physical greenhouse or does it have to be open to the air? I was wondering that. In my dream, sorry my Dream, it was open air. I can’t help feeling enclosing it is kind of cheating. But if that simplifies the problem, we could start with that. But if and when it becomes a stable environment, I’d prefer to open it up again. (Incidentally I’m under no illusion it’d be a stable environment without a HUUUUUGE energy cost. But being dictator of the world has its perks) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/5 "2013-12-21T03:53:47Z")
> [@Nancarrow](#): > > If I dig a disc out of the ice sheet, 5km radius, how deep should it be? I guess I’d have rock at the bottom, then… soil, then… er, plants and stuff (I am not a geologist obviously). It would be a heckuva deep hole. The thickness of the ice sheet at the South Pole is about 2.7 km, so the depth of your hole would be about 1/4 its width. Your first problem will be what to do with all that ice. Also, the ice walls will tend to collapse inward so you will have to excavate out much farther to maintain the size of the hole, or else stabilize the walls with unobtanium or somesuch (and there would continue to be enormous inward pressure from the rest of the ice cap). ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/6 "2013-12-21T04:17:29Z")
> [@Nancarrow](#): > > A few years ago I had a dream. Somebody had somehow converted a small patch of Antarctica, centred on the South Pole, into a little tropical paradise. Did you dream it after taking opium? _The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!_ ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/7 "2013-12-21T04:18:22Z")
I didn’t mean that we’d dig down to the Antarctic rock, I meant we’d put our own rock at the bottom of whatever hole we did dig. So there’d still be tons of ice underneath. I’m thinking, pulling this number completely out of my arse, the hole could be only around 50m deep? Some wikipedia articles are explaining to me that soil and planty stuff doesn’t go nearly as deep as I thought it did. Maybe it could be much LESS than 50m, I dunno. I’d prefer to not to use unobtainium. I mean, where would we get it from? Won’t rock be good enough? What about concrete, reinforced or otherwise? What about carbon nanotubes, or diamond, or are those too much like unobtainium? ETA: Peter Morris, no I didn’t, but I’m glad to see the idea has some pedigree! ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/8 "2013-12-21T04:26:27Z")
Seems pretty unlikely, since Antartica just set a new world record for the coldest spot on earth (-135.8 F, -90C). Global climate change, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/9 "2013-12-21T04:30:14Z")
You may be interested to learn that your dream wasn’t an original idea. What you’ve described is [The Savage World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Land), and it’s appeared in Marvel Comics since the 1960s. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/10 "2013-12-21T04:36:12Z")
Have some sort of space mirror, maybe, to focus sunlight on the area. It might have to have jets to keep it where you want it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/11 "2013-12-21T04:43:52Z")
> [@Nancarrow](#): > > I didn’t mean that we’d dig down to the Antarctic rock, I meant we’d put our own rock at the bottom of whatever hole we did dig. So there’d still be tons of ice underneath. I’m thinking, pulling this number completely out of my arse, the hole could be only around 50m deep? Some wikipedia articles are explaining to me that soil and planty stuff doesn’t go nearly as deep as I thought it did. Maybe it could be much LESS than 50m, I dunno. You have the problem of how you’re going to insulate your soil and plant layer from the massive quantities of ice below your rock layer. You both need to keep the soil from freezing, and the ice below the rock from melting. For the base layer, I think you are going to need a material that is a much better insulator than most rocks. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/12 "2013-12-21T04:54:29Z")
I think the bigger problem might actually be that ice is a very good insulator… in sufficient thickness. There’s going to be some heat leakage from the oasis to the surrounding ice, and the ice is going to need to conduct that same amount of heat out to the ambient environment. That’s going to be tough. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/13 "2013-12-21T09:45:31Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Seems pretty unlikely, since Antartica just set a new world record for the coldest spot on earth (-135.8 F, -90C). Global climate change, anyone? Oh boy. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/14 "2013-12-21T11:08:44Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > Oh boy. What, you don’t remember when Al Gore explained how global warming means that it will never be cold anywhere ever again? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/15 "2013-12-21T12:53:05Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Seems pretty unlikely, since Antartica just set a new world record for the coldest spot on earth (-135.8 F, -90C). Global climate change, anyone? Remarks like this indicate a profound ignorance about what climate change actually means. In fact, the record was set because satellites recorded the temperature by remote sensing at a place that never had been measured before. We have no idea if this place might have been even colder in the past. But even so, as a single measurement in one location, it doesn’t have significance with regard to global climate change. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/16 "2013-12-21T16:27:46Z")
That record was set three years ago (as you would know if you read the news stories and not just the headlines). It was done by looking through a lot of satellite readings of temperature. Now that’s it’s possible to do satellite readings and not just thermometer readings of temperature, there are vastly more individual records of temperature. When you have a relatively small number of observations of any measurement and you suddenly acquire a vastly larger number of observations of that measurement, you will probably find a larger range of measurements. Not surprisingly then, we have discovered that the range of temperatures in Antartica goes several degrees lower than we thought. This is no more interesting than, after many years of measuring the heights of a thousand people per year, suddenly we measure the heights of a billion people. If we discover that there is a new greatest height in those billion measurements, that doesn’t mean that the average height is increasing. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hogbin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58f4c7/32.png) [@Martin\_Hogbin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hogbin)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/17 "2013-12-21T16:51:18Z")
I would go for geothermal energy to heat the area. Sink some deep heap pipes to a depth where the earth is warmer and bring this heat to the surface. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/18 "2013-12-21T17:33:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think the bigger problem might actually be that ice is a very good insulator… in sufficient thickness. There’s going to be some heat leakage from the oasis to the surrounding ice, and the ice is going to need to conduct that same amount of heat out to the ambient environment. That’s going to be tough. Kill two birds with one stone: Build a massive Peltier cooler as a base for the structure. That produce a massive amount of heat. It might take some doing to distribute the heat properly and deal with weather patterns around it if it’s open to the air. Cloud cover and lack of sunlight half the year would also be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/19 "2013-12-21T20:54:03Z")
So, Nancarrow, is it likely that you didn’t originally come up with this tropic oasis in Antartica from your dreams (although you may have dreamed about it later), but instead you originally heard about it from some media that mentioned the Savage Land of Marvel Comics? This would be typical of how memories work, in fact. Often people hear about something from a long-ago movie, TV show, novel, comic book, or whatever. Afterward they dream about it. When they recall it years later, they don’t realize that their memories originally come from that movie, TV show, novel, comic book, or whatever but think that it comes just from their dream: > **[Savage Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Land)** > > The Savage Land is a hidden prehistoric land appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is a tropical preserve hidden in Antarctica. It has appeared in many story arcs in Uncanny X-Men as well as other related books. > The Savage Land first appeared as The Land Where Time Stands Still in Marvel Mystery Comics #22 (Aug. 1941), in the tale "Khor, the Black Sorcerer" by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Syd Shores. It gained its familiar form and moniker in X-Men #10 (March 1965), cour... ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875/20 "2013-12-21T21:26:39Z")
Maybe not at the pole, but aren’t there dry valleys in Antarctica where mountain ridges deflect the flow of glacier ice? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tropical-oasis-at-the-south-pole/676875.md?page=2)