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.