Thanks, Wipneus. Like Neven, I would welcome numbers for the difference in advection through Fram Strait. I wrestle with the same sort of questions Gray-Wolf puts in his topic. But after a lot of NCEP/NCAR daily/monthly composition-messing I feel compelled to post my opinion in this thread.
The stop in Fram Strait ice export during last summer coincides neatly with a persistent high pressure ridge over the East Greenland, Norwegian and Barentsz Seas. Low level winds were mainly South over the Jan Mayen-Fram Strait stretch and North/Northeast in the Frantsa Yosefa-Novaya Zemlya sector.
There was no mean direct input of Southwestern wind into the Barentsz Sea, which contributed to keep SST’s out there to the lowest in the last 10-14 years.
As I have supposed earlier, the main zone of consequences from continuing warming and GHG-emissions may have shifted for some time (FI the mid-latitudes, deeper ocean levels). I think if true, this is a temporary stage. Even when there’s some repetitive tendency in this stage, I find it almost impossible to imagine the same sort of weather-related pattern to emerge each coming melt season.
When asked for an example of a stage, I’d point to Antarctica. The remarkable steady rise in sea ice extent over there, through the last decade, could be such a stage. Off late, there have been some credible explanations how this could have happened and why this cannot be seriously discussed as a form of ‘recovery’.
The geomorphology in the Arctic is very different. Feedbacks possibly contributing to a temporary stage in the Arctic are not comparable to those at work around Antarctica. What could be at work, though, is a change in the Overturning Circulation. It could at the same time contribute to grounding line retreat of Antarctic ice shelves and sea-ending glaciers as well as affect winter and summer atmospheric pressure configuration over the Arctic.