Climate change is exerting an effect on the composition of Artic soil. Oddly, this change in composition could slow down the rate of global warming. Swedish scientists have been investigating.

Beginning around the year 2000, the North Pole abruptly changed its direction and started drifting east, and its all thanks to us, scientists have discovered. The geographic North Pole is located smack in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

At the bottom of the world, it's supposed to be summer, but a blizzard with winds of 105 mph caused Australia's flagship icebreaker Aurora Australis to break its moorings and run aground, stranding 68 expeditioners and crew.

Puerto Williams - American and Chilean scientists examined the chemical properties of freshwater in rivers and lagoons in the Puerto Williams area (Chilean Patagonia) and concluded that this region has "the purest water on the planet.”

Scientists are worried that as the Arctic warms through global warming, then the considerable quantity of carbon locked away in Arctic tundra will be transformed into greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane).

NASA satellite studies show that in the past decade Antarctic ice melt has been adding about 118 billion metric tons per year to the oceans. This has raised concerns about a drastic reshaping of the world's major coastlines with heavy human population.

Earlier this month the NOAA and NASA announced that 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded, shattering the previous records in 2005 and 2010. Now comes the news that global warming is heating the world's oceans at an unprecedented pace.

Cambridge - A collaborative effort involving scientific teams from the UK, U.S. and Australia has produced the first detailed, high-resolution 3-D maps of Antarctic sea ice with the help of an underwater robot.

Emperor penguins are known for being shy, and this can be a challenge for biologists who are studying them. When these penguins are approached by researchers, their heart rates rise and they back away.

Samples taken from an Antarctic lake 800 meters below the ice reveal an abundance of microbial life. The lake was the vast and mysterious Lake Whillans.

Puerto Natales - A ferry carrying 17 passengers and a crew of 28 ran aground at Pass Kirke in the Chilean Fjords. All passengers and crew are unharmed but 40 tons of salmon were lost and more than 200 cattle drowned.

The world's 7,000 species of amphibians can be found on six continents, but there has been few attempts at understanding how salamanders, frogs, toads, and caecilians had moved across time to these distant continents.

Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI may play for the same team as Catholics, but they certainly don't cheer for the same team as football fans.

Emperor penguin populations could lose nearly one-fifth of their members by the end of the century as a result of climate change.

According to reports from scientists studying Antarctica the large increase in tourism there is a threat to the natural environment. The area hosts a wealth of scientific information that may be damaged by tourism.

Two independent studies suggest that the glaciers are on an irreversible path to liquefying and stand to raise global sea levels by around four meters in coming centuries.

Irvine - The rapidly melting West Antarctic Ice Sheet is in an irreversible state of decline according to the latest NASA study. As a result, the "ice-dam" preventing glaciers in the area melting into the sea will ultimately disappear.

- As the sun sets, the cloudy sky melds with the glaring white of the frozen terrain as tourists trudging in single file line marvel over blue glaciers in Antarctica, a hip new vacation destination.

The Hague - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, ordered Japan to put a stop to whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Cambridge - Pine Island Glacier, part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the biggest single contributor to rises in global sea levels, continues to melt at record rates. The melt could continue for decades, according to new research.