This year there is lower correlation of extent with bathy, with the ESS arm extending over shallow water while the deep Beaufort ia relatively clear.
As you are surely aware, ESS often has a Wrangel arm or remnants of one and Beaufort often melts out as noted here
The thing about the Beaufort is that the ice melts out to roughly 77N nearly every year since 2012. 2013 was one exception. And last year the ice nearly melted out to about 77N with significant areas of open water in this region, but also significant areas of very thin and disperse ice further south. There was almost no good melt weather impacting the Beaufort last year. In many years a tongue of ice along the edge reaches further south with 2020 and 2021 this tongue went quite a long way. <>
What I look for in the bathy overlays is signs of ocean activity which are increasingly visible as the ice thins. So we have imo the beginnings of evidence of
1. turbulence reaching near surface along the Lomonosov Ridge perhaps also Gakkel Ridge
2. turbulence along the Mendeleyev Ridge including over the unknown rise that is only on gmrt bathy
3. turbulence north and east of Northwind Ridge
4. turbulence over the shelf break north east of Mclure Strait. Possibly upwelling Pacific layer from Northwind.
5. shelf break north of FJL
6. Maybe harmonic standing waves north of Svalbard/FJL gap
7. Cold or lower salinity current from Vilkitsky Strait
Then, why is the ESS/Chukchi coastal current cold at the end of summer? permafrost?
Is that permafrost between the New Siberian Islands or just an amsr2 moisture/coastal problem?
NE of mclure below
edit: added a static for ref when the ani is removed
