This is not an article so much as a short list of some key mechanisms in the profit and loss account of Arctic ice.
Taking the Arctic as an area which includes 'the twilight zone' - i.e. the northern area which never sees total darkness in winter - it is possible to understand some of the key features and mechanisms which control the balance between ice formation and ice export.
In the distant past, ice would circulate for many years in the Beaufort gyre, becoming even as much as (iirc) 30 year ice. Old ice was exported mainly through the Nares Strait and the Fram Strait and was replaced by new ice formed for the most part in the Laptev Sea.
The Odden Ice Tongue on the Atlantic side, the Aleutians and other islands on the Pacific side formed ice barriers which slowed down ice export. Year-on-year shore-bound ice in the various North-West passages prevented export by those routes.
The Laptev factory would create new ice by the effect of wind blowing from land out over the sea. The new ice was driven by the same wind into the central pack where it would be trapped and spend some years rejecting salt and compacting.
What has changed.
The loss of the Odden, the frequent loss of a solid Aleutian chain ice barrier, the frequent loss of an ice bridge in the Nares Strait and the frequently open North-West passages all add up to a loss of or dramatic weakening of barriers to export.
A reduced size of central pack means the new Laptev ice must travel further to join it, meanwhile being exposed to melting from warm winds and warm currents.
Reduced mass of floes has three predictable effects.
1 - loss of keel. Really old and ridged ice has a deep keel underwater. Such ice tends to go with the current. Young ice tends to go with the wind.
2 - loss of mass. Lighter objects are more readily blown around than heavier objects and, given enough distance travelled, attain higher velocities.
3 - impact velocity. A fast moving floe coming against land or a stalled mass of ice is more likely to disintegrate than to be merged into thick pack.
Wave and tide action.
In former times, leads would open as thick shore-fast ice was lifted by tidal currents. These leads would either close again or freeze over. Thinner ice is shattered by tidal currents.
Waves, whether tide or wind, can readily shatter even exceedingly large floes. The laws of physics show that the wave energy is converted into the work done in breaking the ice, and this is a heat equivalent.
A smaller pack of younger ice will tend to move more with the wind, less with the currents.
Warm Atlantic and Pacific surface water can now intrude further into the Arctic basin before being forced under the ice.
More open water means a greater fetch for the wind and greater Ekmann transport, so more mixing of water layers.
Ice is lost through transport into warm waters. The warm water fronts have advanced as the ice has retreated.
So much has changed - even ignoring the meteorology - that we need a new Arctic ice model.