Didn't know you were a skeptic too at one point. I accepted the mainstream conclusions of the science, when it became abundantly clear that we were still warming, and there was no sign of any prospective cooling. Learning more about the subject didn't hurt either. It's been over 3 years since I recognized this.
There are no energy accumulation lags. Zero. It is like saying that a pot on a stove will continue to gain energy, even after the burner has been turned off. It makes no physical sense. So the continued upper ocean heat accumulation is totally inconsistent with reduced solar activity. It is just not causing current climate change.
Getting back on topic, a pretty poor pattern for the Pacific side of the ice is on the way. The 12z ECMWF is advertising well above normal 850 hPa temperatures in the medium range and beyond for that region. Kind of surprised we still saw sizable losses over the last few days, despite cooler than normal 850 hPa temperatures. Unless recent losses have all come from the Hudson Bay. I think persistence type predictions of the sea ice minimum, like June melt ponding have the potential to be more inaccurate than usual this year. With the ice being so thin, it won't take as much to see sizable losses in the coming couple of months.