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My experience is also limited. I was fortunate to go through the NWP in a low ice year (2011), and I've only been to Antarctica once, so have no experience to compare it to.
Similarly to what you said, what's important for voyaging isn't so much the total amount of ice, as where the ice is. That is determined more by wind direction (pushing ice towards or away from routes) and speed (higher winds causing more waves breaking ice into smaller pieces which melt faster), and currents (moving ice that is not attached to the shore).
From the perspective of planning a voyage around ice, I don't see the overall process changing much. In some years some areas will have little or no ice, and some years those same areas will be difficult. The conditions one will experience on a particular voyage are not likely to be more predictable.
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