I suspect that the Laxton Sea will materialize this year. The late University College London Professor late Seymour Laxton's seminal forecast of summer 2020 being the first year when the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free 'blue ocean' in summer time
The Laxton Sea (Blue Ocean Event) sits roughly in the mid-point of the early millennium 'early-bird forecasters for fast North Pole sea ice loss' against the forecasts of the IPCC and the Arctic Council.
Even as late as February 2007, the Arctic Council's "Arctic Impact Report" proposed the Arctic Ocean becoming ice free as late as year 2150 (which of course flied into face of FIPC's campaign of imminent event at the time).
Arctic Council produced two stage graphs with purpose to show two interim stages to the ice-free ocean. One of these suggested ice area for around 2040-2060 period, and another for 2070-2100 period. Only four to five months later (July-August 2007) the sea ice area loss approached this 2040-2060 graph with the Arctic Council abandoning its report. I got called to present FIPC point of view at RSE VII Symposium: Arctic - Mirror of Life where I was sitting on a press panel with Robert W Correll (Arctic Council's lead author), Jane Lubchenko (then-to-be NOAA head), and Terry Callaghan
http://www.rsesymposia.org/hbmore.php?catid=164&pcatid=162&thehbid=27FIPC (Frozen Isthmuses' Protection Campaign of the Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean, and myself) based our extrapolation of the rapid sea ice area shrinking on summers 2005, 2006 & 2007 which was a linear extrapolation to hit (at that given rate) to zero around 2010 - only if sea ice area reduction had continued shrinking on that 3-year decline rate, perhaps slightly accelerating). This was, of course, not looking at thickness and other complex issues which have become obvious.
Peter Wadham of Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge was perhaps the first person to raise concern for the shrinking ice body in the Arctic Ocean having observed a considerable thinning for years before the issue became visible on sea ice's spatial extent and stability. Already in 1990's Peter Wadhams appeared in the British newspapers pointing to considerable thinning in submarine upward sonar measurements taken throughout the Cold War as part of war games with the then USSR and then Russia. Peter Wadham's first ice free Arctic Ocean was forecast slightly later to FIPC date 2010, suggesting the summer 2012 in the forecast made towards the end of the first decade of the third millennium. (This made the full front page news on The First News newspaper at the time and appeared reported less prominently in other papers at the time in the UK.)
Wiesław Masłowski of Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California was third early bird at the time also suggesting early sea ice loss against the conventional views of the time. Though I do not have the exact dates for him, perhaps because his influence is in the US regions.
So, how the Laxton Sea materialises now? Perhaps, with the fringes melting really fast, followed by unstable and migratory Central Arctic ice pack that is increasingly tossed around and smashed by waves and weakened by warm temperatures. It is, of course, far too much said that persistent wind patterns, jet streams, and movement of depression systems and flow of warm air pan out.
My main concern for the Laxton Sea this summer would be its impact on north Greenland Ice Sheet and build up of water in moulins and crevasses and destabilzation of land ice post sea ice:
https://www.academia.edu/37157851/Our_Changing_Climate_in_Action_the_Risk_of_Global_Warming_and_the_Environmental_Damage_from_the_Rising_Ocean_Water_Table_Sustainable_Seas_Enquiry_Written_evidence_submitted_by_Veli_Albert_Kallio_FRGS_SSI0121_Ordered_to_be_published_23_May_2018_by_the_House_of_CommonsIPCC's very first date for the ice-free Arctic Ocean remains year 2030 (hence my statement of the Laxton Sea sitting on the mid-point of early birds 2010 and laggards earliest point at 2030).
"ice north of Greenland" With persistent lows over Barents the tidally enhanced flow into the arctic would increase, some water has to leave, i guess the shear zone is quite shallow and everthing above it is moving towards Fram, hence the unusual size of the area on the move. The more or less persistent high[mslp] on the Beaufort side would add to the impetus. It's hard to establish any current but once established a 'slime effect' come into play and until some other random event disturbs the flow it'll persist. If Wayne at eh2r is right we may be stuck with this weather pattern for some time, so the loss of ice may begin to define the season.