Despite my diligent stretching exercises, I've made scant progress towards my goal of having flying monkeys exit my anus, which I estimate having an equivalent likelihood as an "ice-free" arctic. The only way of successfully having an 'ice-free' arctic is redefining the terms, "ice-free" or "arctic" both of which are essentially marketing terms in the first place and relatively malleable. So, it's back to my exercises...
Maybe even more importantly - what effects will an ice-free Arctic have? Slight weather perturbations, or the end of the world as we know it?
Or what can we do to offset the albedo effects of decreasing ice cover? Low primary productivity areas like those that were formerly permanently covered in ice or deserts seem like good places for artificial light reflection.
There's been speculation that the heart of the winter will shift. That instead of a cold arctic surrounded by permanent westerly winds the winds will shift so the coldest area is somewhere in North America during the northern winter.
That's just speculation at this point. We're entering unknown territory.
Around the middle of the century, but predictions vary from soon up until 2100CE.
I hate these long-form articles with clickbait headlines.