Where is the energy going?
Increased water temps, modest air temp, all that insolation... What unseen (by me, anyway) changes in energy transport are saving the ice in the face of more measurably greater total energy in the system?
The problem here is that you're not fully appreciating the scale of the system.
Bruce; You are in earnest, so I will be polite. Yes, I do appreciate the scale of the system. We're talking in terms of pentajoules, spread across 10's of millions of KM2, both stored in it currently, and getting dumped into it by insolation and transport by current.
The question still remains, given equality of inputs of heat into the system, and the behavior of the weather, which is strongly favorable to melt, what sink has picked up the energy, or by what mechanism has the energy been re-radiated or transferred, rather than dumped into the ice?
Yes, this year there is more total energy in the system than last, and last year there was more than the year before, etc. But it is a very, very big system. The relative changes from year to year are very small. If you look at "now" as the last ten years, and compare that to a decade a hundred years ago, there is considerably more energy in the system now(ish), and the amount of ice is dramatically less than it was. But looking at just a few recent years, you can get any "trend" you want -- up, down, flat -- because the short term variance is large.
If you could accurately measure the total energy in the system then, yes, it would likely increase every year. But expecting surface measurements (or proxies, like ice) to show warming every year, year after year, is simply to misunderstand the system. The vast majority of the warming goes into the ocean. If the ocean takes in just a little bit more heat, the year is relatively "cool". If the oceans release a bit more heat than average, then then year is relatively "hot." But these are the characteristics of a very large, very complicated system. It is only by stepping back and taking the long view that the signal separates from the noise, and the true picture emerges.
I am stepping back, I am taking a long view. I'm pointing out that the short term phenomena do not appear to be syncing up with the apparent inputs, and the observational tools we have appear to be coming up seriously short in giving us a clear idea of what is happening.
So the short answer to your question is that the energy is going into the oceans. The practical answer is: just wait a while, it'll make its presence known. If not this year, then next. If not next, then the year after. But eventually it will show up, and probably with a vengeance.
Into the oceans, possibly. I'm not so sure about that. My own money is leaning towards changes in albedo and LW emissions out of the top of the troposphere, but, I've got no way right now of seeing that.
The frustrating part is, it is all conjecture, as we don't have good measurements of sensible heat that might inform us. In fact, I'm led to the conclusion we don't have a firm grip on the insensible heat, as represented by the net enthalpy of the volume of ice that makes up the Arctic pack. My memory is, the possible error for estimates of volume are as much as 25% of the stated value. That makes definitive, exacting statement of it rather hard to swallow.
It occurred to me we might be able to estimate loss to albedo from the long-term satellite record. Sadly my own tools, time and skill are insufficient to assemble such a study, but that might offer us clues.
So I am frustrated, both with my own ability to evaluate data, my available time, and the quality of information we have. That is rather different than not appreciating the scale of the system.