UPDATES
All migrants moved off Banksy-funded rescue vessel stranded in Mediterranean

Issued on: 30/08/2020 -

The Louise Michel rescue vessel with people rescued on board after operations in the Mediterranean, 70 miles southwest Malta on August 29, 2020. © Santi Palacios, AP Photo

All of the migrants on board a rescue ship funded by British street artist Banksy have been transferred to other vessels, the team behind the mission said after their pink-and-white ship carrying more than 200 passengers sent an urgent call for help.

An Italian patrol vessel rushed to the stranded MV Louise Michel in the Mediterranean and took in 49 of the most vulnerable people on Saturday, the coastguard said.

The remaining migrants on board, around 150 people, were received by a vessel chartered by German NGO Sea Watch and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), according to tweets from both organisations and the Louise Michel's crew.

"For those most recently embarked, medical assessment is ongoing, with the clinic full & #MSF medics treating people for fuel burns, dehydration, hypothermia & traumatic injuries," the MSF Sea Twitter account said of the situation on board the Sea-Watch 4.

The German-flagged Louise Michel had said it needed aid after helping a boat carrying at least one dead migrant in the sea that divides Africa and Europe.

#LouiseMichel just transferred all remaining guests onto #SeaWatch4, who now have about 350 people on board. It's not over: We demand a Place of Safety for all survivors, now. pic.twitter.com/KjUEG6yp4A— LouiseMichel (@MVLouiseMichel) August 29, 2020

Its crew said the 31-metre (101-foot) ship had become overcrowded and unable to move, warning that some of the migrants had fuel burns and had been at sea for days.

"Given the danger of the situation, the coastguard sent a patrol boat to Lampedusa which took in 49 people deemed the most fragile, including 32 women, 13 children and four men," said a coastguard statement.


New Banksy-funded migrant rescue ship weathers 'very dramatic moment' in Mediterranean
160000

The rescued migrants later said three people had died at sea before the arrival of the Louise Michel.

Banksy, who keeps his identity a secret, explained in an online video that he had bought the boat to help migrants "because EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from non-Europeans".

'Lack of reaction'

Sea-Watch 4, which has a clinic on board and is itself in search of a host port, said it was now carrying 350 people after sailing for four hours to help the Louise Michel.

Its crew decided to take action "in the face of the lack of reaction" from the authorities, a Sea Watch spokesman told AFP.

The #SeaWatch4 has completed the transshipment of about 150 people rescued in recent days by the #LouiseMichel.
We now have ~350 people on board who need to disembark in a safe port as soon as possible.#DefendSolidarity pic.twitter.com/ZIMGkwBlGi— Sea-Watch International (@seawatch_intl) August 29, 2020

The Louise Michel vessel's crew of 10 had already rescued 89 people from a rubber boat in distress on Thursday.

They had tweeted that there were a total 219 people on board and that they had requested assistance from both the Italian and Maltese authorities.

The boat -- a former French customs vessel named after 19th-century French anarchist Louise Michel -- was around 90 kilometres (55 miles) southeast of Lampedusa on Saturday, according to the global ship tracking website Marine Traffic.

It features a Banksy artwork depicting a girl in a life vest holding a heart-shaped safety buoy.

Its crew is "made up of European activists with long experience in search and rescue operations" and is captained by German human rights activist Pia Klemp, who has also captained other such rescue vessels, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Thousands of people are thought to have died making the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean to flee conflict, repression and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.

According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, attempts by migrant boats to cross the Mediterranean into Europe have increased this year, up 91 percent from January to July over last year's figures, to 14,481 people.

'Anti-fascist fight'

Banksy's involvement in the rescue mission goes back to September 2019 when he sent Klemp an email asking how he could contribute.

Klemp, who initially thought it was a joke, told the paper she believed she was chosen because of her political stance, The Guardian said."I don't see sea rescue as a humanitarian action, but as part of an anti-fascist fight," she told the paper.

This month, humanitarian organisations said they would resume migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea, where none have operated since the rescue ship Ocean Viking docked in Italy in early July.

Before the Ocean Viking's last mission, rescue operations in the Mediterranean had been suspended for months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile in the French port city of Marseille, 30 protesters called on Italian authorities to release the Ocean Viking, which was detained by the Italian coastguard over technical irregularities.

(AFP)

French magazine’s depiction of lawmaker as a slave in chains sparks outrage

Issued on: 30/08/2020 - 09:38

Lawmaker Danielle Obono at the National Assembly in Paris on March 3, 2020.

 © Ludovic Marin, AFP/Archives

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by:Solange MOUGIN BELOW

An ultra-conservative French magazine prompted outrage on Saturday by portrayed a Black female lawmaker as a slave in chains, earning condemnation nationwide as well as from French President Emmanuel Macron.

The French presidency said Macron called Danielle Obono from the far-left party France Unbowed and "expressed his clear condemnation of any form of racism".

The magazine Valeurs Actuelles (roughly translated as Current Values), which caters to readers on the right and far right, showed Obono in chains with an iron collar on her neck to illustrate a seven-page story.

Obono tweeted in response that apparently people can still write "racist sh*t" illustrated by images of a French MP depicted as a slave.

"The extreme right – odious, stupid and cruel. In brief, like itself," she added.

Il paraît 'Qu'on-Peut-Pu-Rien-Dire' #BienPensance. Heureusement on peut encore écrire de la merde raciste dans un torchon illustrée par les images d'une députée française noire africaine repeinte en esclave...
L'extrême-droite, odieuse, bête et cruelle. Bref, égale à elle-même. pic.twitter.com/EupKSXZ207— Députée Obono (@Deputee_Obono) August 28, 2020

Prime Minister Jean Castex said it was a "revolting publication that deserves clear condemnation" and told Obono that she had the government's support.

"I share the indignation of lawmaker Obono," he said.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti noted that even hateful speech is legal, although worthy of condemnation. "One is free to write a putrid novel within the limits fixed by the law. One is free to hate it. I hate it."

The anti-racism body SOS Racisme deplored a rise in hate speech against African and Arab politicians and said it was mulling what legal measures could be taken to counter this.

The magazine, however, denied it was racist, saying the story concerning Obono was "a work of fiction ... but never nasty".

An official from France's far-right National Rally party (formerly the National Front), Wallerand de Saint-Just, said the story was "in absolute bad taste".

France saw a series of anti-racism protests in June and July – including demonstrations against its history of colonialism and police brutality – in part inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd's death in the United States.

France has also had its own high-profile cases of Black and Arab men who have died in police custody, notably Cedric Chouviat and Adama Traoré. Traoré, 24, died in July 2016 following his arrest in circumstances that remain unclear. Chouviat, 42, died two days after he was stopped by police in January for a traffic violation, an incident that quickly escalated. Three officers have since been charged.


Chouviat could be heard in video footage saying, "I'm suffocating" seven times as police hold him down

>> ‘Black and treated as such’: France’s anti-racism protests expose myth of colour-blind Republic

Macron, seen as a political centrist, raised eyebrows last year when he gave an interview to Valeurs Actuelles and praised it as a "good magazine".

He has pledged to root out racism but also said France would not take down statues of figures linked to the colonial era or the slave trade despite recent calls from protesters and anti-racism activists to do so.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Iranian women go online to break silence over sexual abuse
Issued on: 29/08/2020

Iranian women riding a bus in Tehran. © AFP file photo
Text by:Bahar MAKOOI

Dozens of Iranian women have taken to social media to share their stories of sexual harassment and rape, breaking years of silence and shedding light on a legal system that is weighted against the victims


For 14 years, Sara Omatali kept her personal trauma under wraps, unable to speak out about the ordeal she suffered in Tehran in the summer of 2006. The former journalist, who now lives in the United States, was sexually assaulted while interviewing a prominent artist in the Iranian capital. A week ago, she finally decided to break her silence on Twitter.

Omatali is among dozens of Iranian women who have recently taken to social media to denounce the sexual harassment and abuse they suffered. Some have used the #MeToo hashtag, coined in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.


نوشتن این چند سطر از سخت‌ترین کارهایی است که کرده‌ام. قرار است ماجرایی را بخوانید که ممکن است آدمی را که نزد خیلی‌هایتان فردی خردمند و فرهیخته و داناست و از روشنفکرهای محبوب، به کل زیر سؤال ببرد. این روایت را سال‌ها حمل کرده‌ام و دیگر دلیلی برای حمل مصلحت‌اندیشانه‌شان نمی‌بینم/— Sara Omatali (@SOmatali) August 22, 2020

Omatali was encouraged to speak out after reading the account of another young woman who said she was raped three years ago by a Tehran socialite. In her account posted on Instagram in mid-August, the woman said she woke up naked after her assailant had drugged and raped her. Her post soon went viral and more than a dozen women have since come forward to claim they were attacked by the same man.

Faced with the backlash, Tehran police arrested the suspect on August 25. In a rare twist, Iranian authorities have encouraged women to come forward and press charges.

"We assure the anonymity of all complaints," said Hossein Rahimi, Tehran's police chief, in remarks carried by the IRNA state news agency.

In recent weeks, other Iranian women have taken to Instagram and Twitter to name their alleged assailants. The accused include a university professor as well as prominent artists, actors and writers.

Several of the victims said they were minors at the time of the abuse. Some, mostly journalists, have dared to speak out without using a pseudonym.

Their accounts have elicited a wave of support on social media. In some cases, lawyers have offered legal advice, mindful that the accusations could turn against the plaintiffs. Some have offered to counsel victims pro bono.

“If you have been raped, you should tell the police you were a virgin before the assault,” read one comment on a victims’ post, according to French daily Le Monde.

Under Iranian law, sexual intercourse before marriage is punishable by 99 lashes and alcohol consumption is also banned.

A biased legal system

The flurry of accounts on social media has helped to crack a long-standing taboo and raise awareness of rampant sexual abuse, Omatali said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“In the absence of systematic education about sexual issues in Iran, this group movement improves the atmosphere for a public discussion and creates a precious opportunity for education,” she said.

"All these years I remained silent, as I was afraid of those who would tell me I had no evidence to prove my claim ... but now, I feel that it is below my dignity to stay silent out of fear," the Washington-based educator added on Twitter.

It is not only the personal trauma and the fear of social stigma that force victims into silence. The laws of the Islamic Republic also act as a deterrent for many victims, according to lawyer Mohammad Oliaeifard.

In remarks carried by Persian-language website IranWire, Oliaeifard stressed the difficulty of proving rape in an Iranian court. To be recognised as such, a rape must be confirmed by multiple eyewitnesses and involve penile penetration.

The severity of punishments meted out can also dissuade victims from pressing charges, with convicted rapists in Iran likely to be sentenced to capital punishment.

Le Monde spoke to one accuser of the alleged serial rapist who was arrested in late August and recounted her qualms about the possible consequences of a lawsuit.

“It troubles me that he might end up being executed,” she told the French daily. “I’m against the death penalty, even in cases of rape.”

Iran’s vice-president for women and family affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, praised women on Friday for speaking out on sexual assault and called on the judiciary to “forcefully confront” rapists.

“The fact that our girls talk seriously and with intensity about the issue is very valuable, even if it is painful,” Ebtekar was quoted as saying by Borna news agency. The government is currently working on new legislation against sexual violence to present to parliament, she added.

The article was translated from the original in French.

Yes, Hurricane Laura Really Did Tear Down A Confederate Monument

Calcasieu Parish voted to keep the South's Defenders monument in August. Nature disagreed.

Jane LytvynenkoBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on August 27, 2020

Ellie Cherryhomes / Getty Images

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, the fate of a Confederate monument was decided by nature.

Hurricane Laura destroyed the South's Defenders monument, which stood on the grounds of a courthouse in Lake Charles.

This summer, amid a national reckoning on Confederate monuments, protesters called for the statue to be moved to a museum, a point of view shared by Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter. The statue was dedicated in 1915, part of a wave of monuments honoring the Confederacy during the Jim Crow era.

"When we think about this Confederate monument, it literally symbolizes white supremacy and enslaved African Americans,” Cary Chavis, who started one of three petitions to remove the statue, told local TV station KPLC in June. “So we have this monument out in front of our courthouse, which is to be a place where people can see justice and fairness and we have a monument that represents slavery in front of it, and that's not something we should ever support."

But on Aug. 13, the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury voted to keep the statue, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reported.

On Aug. 27, Hurricane Laura reversed that decision.

News of the statue’s destruction spread quickly online, much to the joy of people supporting the removal of the monument.

“The Confederate general has fallen,” tweeted Davante Lewis, a director at Louisiana Budget Project, a watchdog organization.



Davante Lewis@davantelewis
The confederate general has fallen02:13 PM - 27 Aug 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite

“One might say it's God's Will,” local lawyer Donald Carl Hodge Jr. said on Facebook.

“Really scary images coming out of Louisiana after Laura. But this - where the hurricane took down a confederate statue that elected officials wouldn't - this is almost enough to make you believe in the arc of the moral universe,” tweeted Johns Hopkins assistant professor Christy Thornton.

Hurricane Laura is a Category 4 storm that began tearing through the Gulf Coast overnight, and observers fear it could spell an environmental disaster because of the over 60 refineries and petrochemical plants present in the region.

The hurricane didn’t spare the rest of Lake Charles. The city was hit hard this morning and a chemical fire erupted on the outskirts.


Jane Lytvynenko is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Toronto, Canada. PGP fingerprint: A088 89E6 2500 AD3C 8081 BAFB 23BA 21F3 81E0 101C.

FDA expands emergency use authorization for remdesivir


Gilead Sciences manufactures remdesivir under the name Veklury. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- The Food and Drug Administration on Friday expanded its emergency use authorization for antiviral remdesivir to allow it to be used on all hospitalized patients.

The FDA's previous EUA in May allowed doctors to use the drug on only hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with "severe" COVID-19. Now, all hospitalized patients with suspected or laboratory confirmed coronavirus may receive the drug regardless of the severity of the disease

"The FDA continues to make safe and potentially helpful treatments for COVID-19 available as quickly as possible in order to help patients," FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said. "The data to support today's action are encouraging. The data show that this treatment has the potential to help even more hospitalized patients who are suffering from the effects of this devastating virus."

Clinic results on the antiviral have been mixed, with one study last week showing the drug doesn't improve outcomes in people hospitalized with moderate pneumonia caused by COVID-19.

RELATED Study: Targeting COVID-19 virus reproduction could halt infections

But research published in May suggested the drug might be effective in people with severe COVID-19.

A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that seriously ill patients infected with the new coronavirus had an average recovery time of 11 days after receiving the drug, compared to 15 days for those given a placebo.

Originally developed to treat Ebola virus, remdesivir works by slowing the production of enzymes that play a key role in the replication of viruses, including coronaviruses, according to Gilead Sciences.

RELATED COVID-19 clinical trials lack diversity, researchers say


Gilead manufactures remdesivir under the brand name Veklury.

"As we learn more about COVID-19 and we further establish the efficacy and safety profile of Veklury, we see benefit to making the drug available to patients at earlier stages of the disease," said Merdad Parsey, chief medical officer at Gilead Sciences.

"Today's action by the FDA enables physicians to consider a broader range of eligible patients to potentially receive Veklury."

Belarus cracks down on journalists; world leaders decry violence


Demonstrators march against Belarus at the Senate Square in Helsinki, Finland, on Saturday. Photo by Mauri Ratilainen/EPA-EFE

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Belarusian authorities have detained dozens of journalists and stripped them of their accreditation after reporting on protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, world leaders and media outlets have reported.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Friday that more than 50 journalists were arrested Thursday night, including those from the BBC and other international media. The Independent reported hundreds of protesters and journalists were detained during protests in Minsk's Independence Square.

"This was a blatant attempt to interfere with objective & honest reporting. The Belarusian authorities must stop targeting journalists & #defendmediafreedom," Raab tweeted.

German news agency Deutsch Welle said one of its reporters, Alexandra Boguslavskaya, was among those detained. She was released after several hours in custody. The agency said the Belarusian Interior Ministry denied making the arrests.

RELATED Belarus protests: President wields rifle, body armor to show defiance


Russia's Tass news agency reported the Belarusian Foreign Ministry stripped a number of foreign journalists of their credentials, citing the Belarusian Association of Journalists. Among those were reporters for ARD TV, DW, BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, France Press and Radio Liberty.

Journalists have come under scrutiny in the eastern European country amid protests over the re-election of Lukashenko earlier this month. Demonstrators decried possible election fraud in the election giving him his sixth term in office.

The European Union last week declined to recognize the results of the election, calling it "neither free nor fair." The body also condemned violence by police forces against protesters and imposed sanctions on those responsible for the excessive force.

RELATED Britain rejects Belarus' 'fraudulent presidential election'

A joint statement by the United States, Britain, Switzerland and the European Union on Saturday showed support for those protesting the election and called for a stop to "brutal and disproportionate use of force by the law enforcement."

"Intimidation and prosecution based on political grounds need to stop," the statement said. "We call on the Belarusian authorities to respect the country's international obligations on fundamental democratic and human rights. We expect a complete and transparent investigation into all alleged crimes and abuses in order to hold those responsible to account. Only this will pave the way for a peaceful resolution of the crisis based on an inclusive national dialogue."

UPDATE
Banksy-funded rescue ship overloaded, unable to move in Mediterranean

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- The Italian coast guard came to the aid of a Banksy-funded rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea on Saturday after it pulled more than 200 people from the water and became overloaded.

The ship, named the Louise Michel, said it was in a "state of emergency" after rescuing 89 migrants earlier in the week. It picked up an additional 130 on Friday, bringing the total number of passengers to 219 with 10 crew members.

One passenger died and many had fuel burns or were dehydrated.

The crew of the vessel called for assistance from the Italian and Maltese coast guards.

"#LouiseMichel is unable to move, she is no longer the master of her manoeuver, due to her overcrowded deck and a liferaft deployed at her side, but above all due to Europe ignoring our emergency calls for immediate assistance. The responsible authorities remain unresponsive," the ship's Twitter account said Friday.

By Saturday afternoon, though, the Italian coast guard transferred "49 of the most vulnerable survivors," the Louise Michel said.

ritish street artist Banksy funded the ship, which is a former French navy vessel, to assist migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe. It's splashed with bright pink paint and features reproductions of the artist's famous artworks, including one of a girl holding a heart-shaped life preserver. The vessel is named after a 19th century French feminist anarchist.

More than 40,000 migrants have made the trek to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea since January, most from Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Syria and other Middle Eastern and North African countries. This year, 443 people have died attempting the trip, according to data from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

This year is on track to have the fewest number of crossings since 2014, when the refugee crisis began in the region. Migration peaked in 2015, when 1.03 million people crossed the Mediterranean and 3,771 died. More than 5,000 died in 2016 despite about one-third the number of crossings from the previous year.

The Louise-Michel said some of the migrants it rescued were from Libya, where dueling governments are fighting for control.

The crew managed to keep #LouiseMichel stable for almost 12h now. Our new friends told us they lost 3 friends on their journey already. Including the dead body in our one life raft, that makes 4 lives vanished because of Fortress Europe... And we are still waiting. pic.twitter.com/Te2PKCv2Gn— LouiseMichel (@MVLouiseMichel) August 29, 2020

Far-right activists in Sweden burn Koran, sparking riots



Demonstrators burn tires as protesters riot Friday night in the Rosengard neighborhood of Malmo, Sweden. Photo courtesy of TT News Agency/EPA-EFE

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Video circulating of far-right activists burning a Koran near a mosque in Malmo, Sweden, sparked riots overnight, law enforcement said Saturday.

More than 300 rioters threw stones at police and burned tires in the southern Swedish city after video circulated of far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan's followers burning a copy of the Muslim holy book.

Calm did not return to the area until about 3 a.m. Saturday, according to Patric Fors, a Malmo police spokesman.

"A few policeman have been slightly injured, and I don't have any reports of any members of the public being injured," Fors said. "We currently have 13 suspects wanted for rioting, five of them have been arrested, but they have all now been released."

Malmo police had denied Paludan, the leader of Denmark's extremist Hard Line Party, permission to hold an anti-Islamic protest Wednesday. On Friday afternoon, Paludan was banned from entering Sweden for two years, but that didn't stop his supporters from filming themselves burning one copy of a Koran on Friday night, and kicking another one around the city's main square like a football.

Police arrested three of the followers on suspicion of hate crimes.

Rioters accused police of violating their civil rights by allowing people to burn the Koran, but one officer said they made arrests as soon as the the video came out.

Among the spectators, many of the Muslims opposed the rioting, The Local reported.

Amid the rioting, prominent Muslim leader Samir Muric pleaded with the rioters to stop and accused them of shaming their own religion.

Muric also condemned the rioting on his Facebook page.

"Those who are acting this way have nothing to do with Islam," he wrote on Facebook. "Their screams filled with 'la ilaha ill Allah' and 'Allahu Akbar' are just expressions that they don't mean -- because if they really meant it, they would never have acted like this.

"And again: I am against any type of burning -- of the Quran as well as tires and pallets!" Muric added.

MY LITTLE PONY
France: Up to 30 horses killed, mutilated; probe underway



French agriculture minister Julien Denormandie said Friday that recent killings and mutilations of horses in pastures across the country are being investigated. File Photo by John Sommers II/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- French authorities said they're investigating the killing and mutilation of up to 30 horses and ponies in pastures across the country.

Officers are looking into whether the motive for the slayings in recent weeks is linked to satanic rituals or an online challenge.

The reported mutilations include up to 30 incidents of horses being found dead with their ears sliced off, eyes removed, genitals cut, sides slashed and blood drained without meat taken from the carcasses.

"We do not understand the motivation," a police spokeswoman in Paris said. "Is it a satanic rite, insurance fraud, some macabre trophy hunt or an Internet challenge? We don't know. It is very traumatizing."

The incidents have caused fear in the equine community.

Nicolas Demajean, who runs a refuge for about 100 abandoned, mistreated and rescued animals, Ranch of Hope, said his arm was injured while he struggled with a knife-wielding intruder, while another slashed two ponies in their sides.

He said the ponies were traumatized but recovering.

"I used to have confidence putting my horses out to pasture," Demajean told TV station France 3. "Today, I have fear in my gut."

Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie described the incidents as "acts of barbarism" in a tweet.

"All means are mobilized and implemented to put an end to this terror," he added.

The Polarstern, released too early from a floe, returned to the North Pole in August amid thin ice.STEFFEN GRAUPNER

By Paul Voosen Aug. 25, 2020

In March, soon after arriving aboard the Polarstern, a German icebreaker frozen into Arctic sea ice, Jennifer Hutchings watched as ice broke up around the ship, weeks earlier than expected. Even as scientists on the research cruise scrambled to keep field instruments from plunging into the ocean, Hutchings, who studies ice deformation at Oregon State University, Corvallis, couldn’t suppress a thrill at seeing the crack up, as if she had spotted a rare bird. “I got to observe firsthand what I studied,” she says.

Arctic sea ice is itself an endangered species. Next month its extent will reach its annual minimum, which is poised to be among the lowest on record. The trend is clear: Summer ice covers half the area it did in the 1980s, and because it is thinner, its volume is down 75%. With the Arctic warming three times faster than the global average, most scientists grimly acknowledge the inevitability of ice-free summers, perhaps as soon as 2035. “It’s definitely a when, not an if,” says Alek Petty, a polar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Now, he and others are learning that a warming atmosphere is far from the only factor speeding up the ice loss. Strengthening currents and waves are pulverizing the ice. And a study published last week suggests deep heat in the Arctic Ocean has risen and is now melting the ice from below.

Ice has kept its grip on the Arctic with the help of an unusual temperature inversion in the underlying waters. Unlike the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, the Arctic gets warmer as it gets deeper. Bitter winters and chilly, buoyant freshwater from Eurasian rivers cool its surface layers, which helps preserve the underside of the ice. But at greater depths sits a warm blob of salty Atlantic water, thought to be safely separated from the sea ice.

As the reflective ice melts, however, it is replaced by darker water, which absorbs more of the Sun’s energy and warms. Those warming surface waters are likely migrating down into the blob, which robotic temperature probes, moorings, and oceanographic surveys show is steadily warming and growing. With enough heat to melt the Arctic’s ice three to four times over, the blob could devour the ice from below if the barrier of the cold surface layers ever dissipates.

Measurements from the eastern Arctic Ocean, published last week in the Journal of Climate, show the blob, usually found 150 meters below or deeper, has recently moved up to within 80 meters of the surface. Increased turbulence means some of that heat is now melting ice, says Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. “This heat has become, regionally, the key forcing for sea ice decay.”

The process, called “Atlantification,” is already well underway in the Barents Sea, north of Norway, where fingers of warm Atlantic water have spread north and risen, melting sea ice even in winter months. The invasion shows no sign of stopping, says Helene Asbjørnsen, an oceanographer at the University of Bergen who has helped chart this migration. “Ultimately we expect it to extend into the Arctic more.”

Going, going …

Summer Arctic sea ice covers half the area it did in the 1980s, and it could disappear by 2035. The ice faces threats not only from warming air, but also from waves, currents, and melting from below.

The $134 million Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), based on the Polarstern, is exploring another ice-destroying feedback. The ship froze itself into a floe in October 2019, to give the team a chance to observe the floe for one full year as the summer melt season shifted back into freezing. But the project ran into challenges. First came the COVID-19 pandemic, which made planned personnel rotations difficult. Then the ice drifted too far south too quickly. In late July, the day after the team pulled up its remaining instruments, the floe broke up and melted. “To me that is a big loss, and I’m pretty bummed about it,” says Matthew Shupe, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who helped lead U.S. contributions to the cruise. But, he added, there was a bonus: “We never planned to be around for that ‘death of an ice floe’ process.”


The Polarstern’s floe is not an isolated case. Remote sensing satellites show that over the past 20 years, ice has been drifting faster, potentially sweeping it into warmer waters, says Sinéad Farrell, a sea ice scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park. One reason for the change in pace could be faster currents in the Arctic Ocean, as ice melt exposes more water to the push of the wind, says Arild Sundfjord, a physical oceanographer at the Norwegian Polar Institute. “We think we see signs of that.”


Another factor could be an increase in the roughness of the sea ice, which allows wind to catch and propel it. MOSAiC scientists deployed GPS stations across the floe’s melange of first-year and thicker multiyear ice to monitor its speed and deformation. They suspect that as the ice becomes thinner and weaker, it is more prone to the crunch and crumble that builds up wind-catching ridges, Hutchings says, but they’re still resolving whether that is true. The turmoil took a heavy toll on the expedition, crushing some instruments like aluminum cans and destroying snow sampling sites. It was frustrating, Shupe says. “We don’t really control anything here,” he says. “The Arctic is telling us its story and we just need to be clever enough to document it.”


ICESat-2, a laser altimeter launched by NASA in 2018, will help extrapolate findings from MOSAiC to the rest of the Arctic. Unlike previous satellites, ICESat-2 can distinguish between ice floe cracks and melt ponds on top, and it is already showing stark differences between multiyear and first-year ice, Farrell says. In a surprise, the ICESat-2 team is finding that the multiyear ice overall is twice as rough as first-year ice. “It’s kind of like aging skin,” she says. “They get more wrinkly over time.” The satellite also seems to be capable of capturing waves amid the ice, and linking them to nearby storms, Petty says. It’s another worrying mechanism that could speed up ice loss, he says. “As waves break the ice apart, it gets more exposed to heat—and melts further.”


The retreat of the ice bodes ill for global climate, but it is making the Arctic easier to study. This month saw the start of the Synoptic Arctic Survey, which will knit together more than a dozen national Arctic cruises by ice breakers and other research ships. The survey will cover the Arctic’s entirety, providing a near-simultaneous picture of currents, life, and water conditions and chemistry, rather than a collection of regional snapshots over time. The pandemic delayed all but two of the cruises, which were planned for this summer: those of Japan’s Mirai and South Korea’s Aron. But once completed, the survey could answer basic questions, such as whether the Arctic is a net source or sink of carbon dioxide.


And it could not have been done in the ice-bound Arctic of old. “Now,” Sundfjord says, “we can go wherever, and whenever, we want.”