I think the three remaining question marks for this season, besides the obvious unknown weather, are:
* As Friv asks - How much of the CAB ice reaches final melt-out? My gut feeling says this will happen on a wide scale. The thickness lost during the GAAC is way higher than any possible winter advantage the CAB may have had. Besides massive ice movement during Feb-Mar resulted in the replacement of a lot of ice near the pole and Greenland with FYI that came from the Laptev area. This FYI can only take so much before it becomes water.
* Will the CAA break open early enough to allow transport and export of the rather thick ice there? Considering the constant sun and high temperatures experienced by the CAA in the past month or more, my gut feeling says this will happen, and perhaps even enable export of thick ice from the CAB towards the end of the melting season. Currently the breakup in the main channel is faster than the cold years and slower than the very warm years (2011, 2012, 2015, 2016), but considering the amount of thickness that must have been lost I suspect the speed will be enough to carry it to completion on time.
* Will the Beaufort ice succumb to the crazy melting season around it and crash? Due to abnormal transport patterns this year, sea ice area and modelled volume have been consistently high. However, the ice does not look so good and at some point import from the CAB could shrink considerably. In addition, any movement by the Beaufort ice will result in extreme damage due to expected open water all around. Again, my gut feeling is the Beaufort cannot survive on its own with the mayhem going on.
Bonus question - will the weather produce some ice-preserving miracle? Is it even possible at this stage, with so much bottom melt already secured, and only that much thickness remaining? Perhaps the best thing the weather can achieve is an early minimum.
Points which I find unquestionable:
* Laptev is dead and will pursue into the CAB, the only question is how deep.
* ESS ice will soon disappear completely, before the end of the month. It looks terrible on Worldview.
* Chukchi will reach zero in the first half of Aug, despite being fed by the Beaufort.
* Greenland Sea which has been running cold and swollen with ice will lose lots of area and volume in August, as it does every year.
* All the rest (Kara, Barents, Baffin, Hudson) should reach zero during July.
i will go publicly here to predict a record low PIOMAS volume this year. Admittedly it's just a model with its own limitations, but I find it hard to believe that the relentless unprecedented insolation we have seen over huge parts of the CAB will go unnoticed. I have never seen so many clear days on Worldview during peak insolation.
I also expect record low area, with somewhat less certainty. GAC or no GAC, enough damage has been done that will be hard to stop in time. AS for extent, this depends on compaction during the September end-game, harder to predict.
At most, my gut predictions will turn out wrong. Good for the planet.