Considering blocking pattern, the melting pond will be more and more. The melting pond is a signal of massive melt. The weather of MAY is important to decide the ice compared with June and July. June and July is common high speed melting months. However, the sensitivity of ice is high in May.
This is everything.
Historically actual surface ice melt anywhere from 70N+ doesn't take place until July.
With limited bottom ice melt in August between 70-80N.
In the 90s the surface ice melt onset steadily started earlier and earlier.
But the big change first happened in 2007.
Really starting in the fall of 2006 because there was unprecedented loss of MYI into the NATL that winter.
Well almost all of the very limited snowfall in the Arctic basin takes place between September through November..
Between January and April essentially little to no snow falls and what does tends to sublimate.
A lot of the dry Sandy like snow also gets blown into ridges between thicker myi flows that press together essentially forming small 3-20M high mtn ranges of ice.
Or gets blown into the water when floes get roughed up in wind events.
Anyways in 2007 adding to the insult was a ruthless massive top down ridge that blew up right at the start of June that was anomalous from 300MB to the surface meaning dry sinking air that quickly warmed up as soon as surface albedo sank.
This brought us 1.5-2.5CM a day melt from the Beaufort to the ESS on the surface.
The sun was 24/7 so the subsurface quickly warmed to -1C to 1.5C by the first week of July.
For every 0.5C of warmth about 1CM of ice is lost per day.
So by July first we had 2CM top melt and 2-4CM bottom melt wrecking 3-3.5M ice.
However unlike be every other year on record the ridge didn't break down and vanish.
It weakened but strengthen over and over all summer.
A new normal was born.
My point is even between 2007-2019 the solar energy was mostly moot for melt because albedo, clouds, snow cover, what have you.
Can you imagine if we see widespread surface ice melt by the 20th-25th of May instead of getting established after June 15th.
That's 3 weeks of extra melt that's 3 weeks of early July level solar energy not being floated back to space by 0.85 albedo versus 0.55-0.60 albedo where 2-3X more energy is not only melting ice but warming the ice to the melt point and warning the sub surface.
Many of us have preached for years it will take a May solar beating like June 07 to blow by 2012 like 07 blew by 2005.