Looking at the Parry channel there would seem to be a connection between ice break up over the shallowest part, south of Resolute, and ice break up at the mouth of the Mclure Strait. That probably doesn't surprise anyone, but it also looks like, this year, there may be a connection to sudden melt over beaufort deep water west of Mclure Strait. One possible reason is that a larger volume of water has been drawn into the Mclure Strait, causing upwelling close to the shelf further west. Or it could just be coincidence.
whoi itp103 passed by the Mclure Strait recently and the microcats detected a significant temperature spike, but no increase in salinity, perhaps due to meltwater from above.
itp103 location on day560 -129.8953 76.6136, west of Mclure Strait
gmrt bathymetry with unihamburg amsr2-uhh overlay at 75% transparent. Open water, normally dark blue, set to fully transparent, parry channel area, jul1-aug6.
gmrt bathy for reference
whoi itp103 microcats, mounted at 6m and 7m depth
whoi itp103 drift track
edit: unfortunately no scale with my favourite bathymetry map but point and click depths are available at their veiwer here https://www.gmrt.org/GMRTMapTool/np/ blue is deep, beige/grey is shallow. Heavy contrast here to bring out the contours.