To summarise the arguments presented so far concerning ice - loss in the
arctic basin, at least four mechanisms must be recognised: (i) a momentum - induced slowing of winter ice formation, (ii) upward heat - flux from anomalously warm Atlantic water through the
surface low ‐
salinity layer below the ice, (iii) wind patterns that cause the export of anomalous amounts of drift ice through the Fram Straits and disperse pack - ice in the western basin and (iv) the anomalous flux of warm Bering
Sea water into the eastern
Arctic of the mid 1990s.