The Beaufort is high extent because temps have been normal.
I don't think that's the only reason Friv. I think a slowdown of the gyre and thicker ice may have something to do with this as well. And then I saw the low sality...
But as you all know by now, I'm just a fat guy with a computer, so I'm gonna shut up now and leave it up to the specialists.
It certainly is not the reason. Clickon this animation of the last ten days of the furious pace of discharge from the central arctic sea into the Beaufort, both down the CAA coast, and also clearly visible the motion towards the Chukchi of the fragmented and low concentration central Beaufort.
The Irminger current historically used to turn south below Greenland and dip around Greenland before merging with the Labrador and heading south.
As pictured. Last ten years Its been turning south further north near Svalbard. Now last year, and even more this it has decided to go over the top of Greenland, and this year, not even satisfied by colonising the CAA, and Aided by the Beaufort clockwise gyre being closer to Mckenzie Bay, it has stopped the Alaskan coastal current, heading east from Bering, or at least pushed it under to flood the central Beaufort.
As you are seeing some is also going along the siberian coast.
It should be no surprise with this going on that the Beaufort, Chukchi and north of Greenland are about to catastrophically crash, along with the CAA. Particularly if the sub 980 low forecast in the Beaufort appears in a few days as forecast.
Click on Hycom thickness and concentration animations to see whats been and about to happen.