Questions:
Am I correct in thinking that this high pressure system, if it indeed causes mostly clear skies at peak insolation, all while the ice is highly preconditioned compared to other years, will show its effects mostly in August when bottom melt takes over? As in 2012 when the ice losses in the CAB just kept going down and down? while other years levelled off in August?
Am I correct in remembering that this kind of sunshine can cause up to 5cm/day of top melt? So this week long HP could melt 30cm off of wide swaths of the ASI?
If the water under the ice warms up, how much ice starts melting per day? 0.5cm? 1cm? Do we know how fast bottom melt was going in other years, when there were still buoys in the ice measuring such things?
My guess is if 20-30cm melts off the top over the next week, and bottom melt removes 30-60cm off the bottom of the ice over the next 7 or so weeks, there will not be much ice left by volume, and like Friv was saying, the main effect of this HP is going to be on volume. The ice by August will be dispersed slush in a lot of areas.
So if A) this HP does stay relatively clear of clouds, and then B) in August there is some wind bringing waves to the slush and bringing heat up from lower layers of water, there might in fact be much more melting in August than previous years.