It feels like the criteria for what is considered bad weather has to be extreme on here right now.
We have had bad weather since almost all of May.
No summer melt season had endless blow torch.
2012 certainly wasn't torching right now.
I don't see anyone saying the weather hasn't been generally very bad for the ice. But you are indicating possibilities of passing 2012 from a position which is quite far behind at the moment in terms of CAB volume (9th). That seems unrealistic to say the least.
PIOMAS is a great tool but it's also a model.
Also when you look at the distribution of the anomalously thick ice.
There is a large area near Svalbard and in the Fram. This ice is toast. Guaranteed to vanish regardless of the sun and temps because its going into the Atlantic.
The thick area just North of GIS in the Lincoln sea might get flushed but is probably safe.
The area of thick ice in the South Central CAB is pretty safe although that area in the last week seen pretty warm conditions with sun.
The area in the far Western CAB and Southern Beaufort is also likely to be toast.
That ice is sitting on the mouth of the Mackenzie Delta. It will take some serious cloudy and cool conditions with snow at times to prevent that ice from getting the warm hammer from the river water and land WAA.
Also the ice over the pole that's depicted as SLIGHTLY above normal took the May beating.
That's just my opinion. But that ice isn't in very solid space to survive like that for the summer.
The AMSR2 instrument has detected enough water on the ice to say there is surface melting over the Southern CAB recently along the strip of good WAA and where decent Sun has been.
The image of PIOMAS anomalies is the most recent I could find.
And while the Beaufort region is well behind 2019 at this point. There is plenty of time for those thicker floes to get chewed up.
The next 4-5 days will be rather cloudy over the basin.
But the surface is wet everywhere so melting may slow a bit but not stop.
Also the CAA. Atleast the Southern 2/3rds gets smoked with huge warnth.
And how can anyone conclude the Beaufort and CAB aren't seeing strong surface melt.