Some nasty surprises are starting to wink thru the cloud as heat keeps pouring in from Eurasia.
A worldview image of ice near Severnaya Zemlya, showing rapid retreat and melt in a spot where thick ice apparently was just recently.
The various extent and especially area graphs are all over the place, they don't seem equipped to handle a state where so much of the pack is in a state of melt, cascading into rubble as it disperses. There's very little 95% coverage on the maps
The forecasts don't let up. DEwpoints over the ice are close to the surface temp, at the spot indicated on the Windy screenshots dewpoint ranges from 0-2C for the next week with temps about a degree higher. Both GFS and EC show the heat continuing, and hint at the beginning of some weather action from the Barents and Atlantic. One big difference is that GFS appears to be modelling a lot of ghost ice in the ESS, temps in the southern part are much cooler than on the ECMWF. Adjacent regions in Chukotka are ~10 degrees different in the 2 models, freezing in GFS, ranging from 7-15 on EC.
This all as the basin should be cooling - 80N is due to go through 0C on the DMI graph in another day, but, surprise, surprise, temperatures have gone back above the green line and it looks like another week before we go through the freezing point of water in that region
There's not much to slow momentum anytme soon