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A new study calculated that the world population would continue to grow to greater heights. According to research team headed by the University of Washington and the United Nations, there will be around 11 billion people in 2100. This latest estimate is about two billion more than the number that was previously calculated.

"The consensus over the past 20 years or so was that world population, which is currently around 7 billion, would go up to 9 billion and level off or probably decline," said corresponding author Adrian Raftery, a UW professor of statistics and of sociology according to the press release. "We found there's a 70 percent probability the world population will not stabilize this century. Population, which had sort of fallen off the world's agenda, remains a very important issue."

For this paper, the team used modern statistical tools to examine all available data tied to population growth. They reported that the continent with the most anticipated growth is Africa. The numbers suggest that from now to the end of the century, the population will jump from one billion to four million due to the rising birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa. The researchers added that there is an 80 percent chance that the African population will be around 3.5 to 5.1 billion by the end of the century.

Other parts of the world will not experience as huge of a jump in their populations. The researchers stated that in Asia, the population would increase from 4.4 billion to five billion by 2050. However, the population is expected to decline after 2050. The populations in North America, Europe, Latin America and Caribbean are all expected to stay under one billion each.

"This work provides a more statistically driven assessment that allows us to quantify the predictions, and offer a confidence interval that could be useful in planning," said first author Patrick Gerland, a demographer at the U.N.

Raftery added, "This paper brings together the research from the past seven years, and also brings in recent data. We can answer questions about future population growth using standard principles of statistical inference, which has never really been done before."

The report was published in the journal, Science.