More sea-ice cools the Earth, less of it warms the Earth. A cooler Earth means more sea ice and vice versa. The yearly formation of sea ice injects salt into the ocean which makes the water heavier and causes it to flow downwards to the deep waters and drive a massive ocean circulation which reaches as far as the equator. This, in turn, has an effect on uptake by the ocean of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Whenever the system is perturbed, all of the feedback processes participate in the response of the system, but the relative importance of each feedback depends on the nature of the perturbation.
Clouds have a net warming effect on the surface, in contrast to clouds at lower latitudes.
The modeled equilibrium sea ice thickness decreases with increasing cloud fraction and increasing cloud optical depth. Variations in cloud fraction result in variations in the onset of snow melt and the length of the melting period, which may account for observed interannual variability in the melt season. The principal uncertainty in understanding the sensitivity of the Arctic Ocean temperature to a climate perturbation is uncertainty as to whether low cloud fraction will increase or decrease. The sea ice albedo feedback mechanism on multi-year ice is dominated by melt ponds. Inclusion of sea ice dynamics and the ice thickness distribution decreases the strength of the ice albedo feedback relative to thermodynamic-only formulations.