I'm a little unclear on what the temps really mean in terms of melt. It seems to me that the high pressure systems that bring the warm temps also bring clear skies (i.e., more insolation) and wind patterns that push ice outward, spreading it out (and southward) and making it more vulnerable to melting. But ice, as people have been pointing out of late, is a good insulator, and the thermal coupling between the air and the ice is fairly poor. So for a (relatively) short term event like the coming (predicted) high pressure systems how much of the melting is the result of air temperature and how much is the result of other factors? I'm sure the answer is known, I just don't know it.