Julienne Stroeve from NSIDC responded to my query earlier this morning. Here is what she said:
The ice age data show that the old ice that was transported into the Chukchi Sea over the winter and even more into the summer melted out this year. Part of the loss north of Greenland that you are concerned about was because it was transported further in summer to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas where it melted out.
Transport through Fram Strait also continued during summer which would have further depleted the cover of MYI. Note that the loss show in the images reflects either a complete melt out, or that the MYI fraction has fallen below 40% (threshold used in the ice age tracking algorithm).
Let me know if you have any more questions. The movie of the ice age shows the transport quite well. I believe Jim Maslanik will be making his ice age images/movies public in the near future…
Thanks Julienne! I definitely will have more questions.