Regarding the types of weather likely to lead to melt: I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I remember from my youth that the old farmers talked about strong wind + rain + temps around 10C as being able to "tearing up the snow" - the type of weather that would melt lowland ice and snow the fastest.
On the other hand, during summer, by far the biggest melt events on the glaciers are caused by sunlight. The Icelandic glaciers differ from Arctic ice when it comes to albedo - there is a lot of dirt, volcanic ash etc. to darken the glacier ice.
On the third hand, I recently ran into an article describing the biggest Greenland Ice Cap melt event in modern history as being caused by wet, windy weather and not sunlight.
But if I had a fourth hand I would give some support to the claim by Friv and others that insolation during summer is the single biggest factor effecting the overall melt.
You and I had a few excellent debates about clouds and storms in the last two years on these melting threads, and thanks to your explanatory help, I've concluded that we need warm low pressure systems early on in the melting season to introduce the first heat into the Arctic that heats up the arctic and causes the surface of the ice to have first melt. After that first introduction of heat, we need cloudless high pressure systems that give us insolation on the lower albedo ice. This would be the perfect scenario for high melt...
Too counteract that though, high pressure can push the ice towards higher latitudes which could be more protected, it also increases the likelyhood of the CAB not getting too diffused unlike in low pressure dominant years like 2010,13,16 and 17 in particular.
I think if an area of high pressure is forecast, then for it to be really bad for the ice, it has to be one that ridges in off the continent bringing both warm air above and at ice level. The current set up does show that locally for the Laptev but less so for the ESS. If an area of high pressure is over the basin but it brings little to no heat off the continents and is quite flabby in nature then it's probably not as bad for the ice as one might imagine.
As for low pressure then its definately more favourable short term but longer term if you get a low pressure system sticking around in more or less the same area, dispersion increases which makes the ice more vulnable later on in the melt season, this definately what happened in 2012 and 2016 imo. I've no doubt in 2012 case, exceptionally high SSTS in the Beaufort may of also played a role also.
Back to the outlook, the euro models are still hinting perhaps high pressure may eventually set up over the Beaufort which could lead to more dipole conditions but its still in the medium term and the signal is perhaps not as strong as yesterday runs. Otherwise its a pattern of a high pressure system over the ESS and lower pressure over the pole with weak throughing over the Beaufort. So mixed fortunes for the ice seemingly, the small polynas developing over the ice around the ESS is an interesting development mind.
