Interesting comments from some of the least scientific and most bias sources I've seen David come up with to date.
The rescue operation is being conducted by a US ship, the
Polar Star which has been remodeled and refitted largely to open a channel back up to the research stations and weather stations currently located in Antarctica. The reason it is being refitted is because
the melting and scattering of the Antarctic ice field, due to global warming, has jammed and closed the old channel through the Ross Ice Shelf. At least, that's what National Geographic had to say about it. I'd post the link but it makes you register and subscribe.
The ice shelves around Antarctica are breaking off, causing problems for the ships which sail to supply the research and weather teams that are down there. The scattering ice, in huge, island-sized chunks, are floating outward on the ocean currents, changing the channels and configuration of the shipping lanes, which used to be pretty reliable.
The ice also affects ocean currents because it cools the water down, changing the flow patterns, in some cases stopping them altogether. It has the effect of suppressing weather-affecting phenomenon such as El Nino, La Nina, etc. I'll bet there's probably at the very least a hypothesis lying around somewhere, with some research, indicating that the frequency and severity of the tornadoes in 1990 and 2013 that flattened Moore, Oklahoma are related to the irregularity of the temperature in the South Pacific, and specifically the effects on El Nino and La Nina. So there's your global warming disaster in Oklahoma.