Two UK scientists are travelling to one of the coldest places on Earth to help them understand how life could exist on other planets in our Solar System. Professor Liane Benning (University of Leeds) and Dr. Dominique Tobler (University of Glasgow) are travelling to Ny-Alesund on the island of Svalbard to investigate how the snow and ice there was first colonized by extremophiles -- organisms that thrive in harsh conditions.

As Arctic sea-ice recedes inexorably towards another record summer minimum, scientists have highlighted the exceptional contribution that satellites have made to the International Polar Year and charting the effects of climate change.

NASA's first dedicated oceanographic field campaign goes to sea June 15 to take an up-close look at how changing conditions in the Arctic are affecting the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems that play a critical role in global climate change.

Dale Andersen: Our research in the perennially ice-covered lakes of Antarctica involves long, hard days, but they are always fun and exciting. Here, Dale Andersen, having completed a dive next to the Canada Glacier is exiting the water - with a bit of help from George Simmons and Bob Wharton and Phil Ballou.

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, June 8 to preview the agency's first dedicated oceanographic research voyage. During the mission, scientists will study changing Arctic climate and ice conditions affecting ocean ecosystems.

There are several webcams currently in operation on Devon Island in Support of the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse located at the HMP Research Station. The greenhouse was installed on Devon Island in the summer of 2002.

These webcams update once a day, conditions permitting, through the greenhouse's autonomous systems using an MSAT satellite connection.

Permafrost is not your garden-variety soil. Beneath the frozen depths of the Arctic, the icy soil stores an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon - including methane and other hydrocarbons -- twice as much as is found in the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are locked up in frozen ground that covers 24 percent of the exposed land in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, as well as Antarctica and the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile.