Lacking the skill to interpret what effects different weather patterns will have on the ice, I just take what GFS generates for surface temperature anomalies, with additional looks at wind fields and how much clear sky there is. Note that the anomalies shown in the attached GFS 1-day forecast are relative to the 1979-2000 average (i.e. 1990 median). So with cumulative global warming since 1990 multiplied ca. 3X by Arctic amplification, you would expect a 1 to 2C positive anomaly everywhere all the time just from the 31-year difference between 1990 to 2021. But that is not what the forecast shows. Zero anomaly 1990 temps in 2021 is a very cool forecast.
The rest of the 10-day GFS forecast is basically the same. The ESS and Laptev get several bouts of warm surface temp. anomalies, a couple of rain events, and short periods of clear sky. But for the rest of the ASI it looks like a continuation of low-intensity melt season weather, minimal surface temp anomalies, dominance by low to intermediate strength low pressure systems, and few breaks in the clouds for unimpeded solar insolation.
Combined with similar conditions for roughly the 2-3 weeks before the solstice, this forecast extending to 3 weeks past the solstice indicates that for the 6 week period centered on the solstice, i.e. the peak of annual/melt season insolation, conditions were not conducive for a high melt year. The DMI 80N temperature chart has its problems, but is still a useful monitor of melt season intensity. For the first time I can recall, it shows temperatures below the 1958-2002 average.
Yet the 2021 stats for Extent/Area/Volume are not that far from record low levels. I think this all means that 2021 is showing us what the ASI looks like in the best possible melt season conditions. Not as dramatic as a horse race to beat the 2012 record lows, but equally as informative and therefore interesting.
2021 shows us how far ASI decline has progressed without much contribution from current melt year exaggeration. 2021 is the baseline from which all subsequent melt seasons will operate. That may appear to be a foolish thing to say because of course EVERY year is the baseline for subsequent years. But my point is that if the 2021 melt season continues to be undramatic without inflammatory episodes like the 2020 prolonged July high pressure clear sky system, then 2021 becomes a very useful demonstration for the best possible state of the ASI without strong current melt season influence.
From that perspective, it seems pretty clear that the ASI is in terrible shape. Near record lows without much push from current melt season weather indicate that other factors such as Atlantification and the systemic momentum of losses from thickness and structural degradation are still at work.
If 2021 levels for different seas serve as high-end brackets for what we can expect in the future, it gives us a reference point for what Extent/Area/Volume levels will result from the next year with strong melt season weather. Based on the interval between strong melt seasons since 2007, and counting 2020 as a strong melt season, the next strong melt season is probably no more than 1-3 years away. And with global warming continuing, the floor underneath each melt season continues to increase in intensity.