Hi Pagophilus, Thanks for playing devil's advocate. That's how we all learn and how science works. I also appreciate that despite our differences on this forum we find a way to learn together. The world could use a lot more of that, so let's model it shall we.
In regards to the Kara, i used the phrase "literally screwed" partly because the whole region looks to be screwed in a wind spiral quite persistently over the next 5-6 days. From my perspective, it's hard to know what will be worse: The higher wind and rain in the Kara or the lower wind/moisture and higher heat/net insolation effecting ESS, etc.
The ice in the Kara does not look particularly robust and there is plenty of open ocean around the pack, and decent space between the floes, to allow waves and Ekman pumping do their work in melting the ice. Are you assuming that the waters are cold in the Kara or do you have data to back that up? Lack of melt there can also mean that there is less cool fresh water about. Also with this much persistent wind one should factor in the heat below the surface that can make its way up.
In the end the melting will have the final say and the arctic will school us all.
Thank you for your collegial, open-minded and genial response, IceShieldz. Much appreciated.
I must confess that my assessment of the Kara being slow to melt out and the Kara's waters being relatively cold was based largely on looking at the AMSR2 maps (including year on year) and on looking at Worldview, Nullschool 'data' and at the information on the Kara sea ice area and extent provided by Gerontocrat. It was more a general impression which seemed to point in the same general direction, a relatively cool Kara (and particularly so when compared to the Laptev next to it).
What I did was go back to Gerontocrat's most recent area graph of the Kara on June 9, then sum up area losses and gains (net -113K loss) from that date to June 19 and extrapolate his line from there. On June 9, the Kara was pretty much hugging its decadal (2010's) average line for area. The area loss since June 9 has taken the Kara plot somewhat above (about 40k) above that 2010s decadal average plot as of June 19. So there is at least some indirect evidence there of the Kara losing ice more slowly, with the further possible inference being the Kara's surface waters may be relatively cool. I am of course aware of the issues with 'trusting' area at this time of year, but the Kara has largely been in cloud of late, and its ice is pretty white, so I think area is fairly trustworthy in this instance. (On a side note, I would really like to learn how I can obtain direct measurements of the sea surface temperature in the Arctic.)
Putting aside that devil's advocate cap for a moment, as you say, surface mixing, with warmer waters rising to the surface may well occur, and that could be a huge factor for the Kara ice. I guess that would depend a lot on wind speeds and duration.
If you got to the end of this response, thanks for reading. As you say, the arctic will probably school us all !