Rethinking a Design 'Tell'

Last May we naively posted Submarine Design and the Strategic 'Global Warming' Chicken Game .

We based our premise largely on this:
In summary, melting of sea ice in the Arctic will turn into a conventional open-ocean ASW environment, with none of the advantages it now affords to an adversary strategic submarine. - Naval Operations in an Ice-free Arctic Symposium, 2001 source

There may be global warming cinch or fallacy clues relating to submarine arctic ops, but placement of control planes will definitely not be reliable. Photos of open arctic water or thicker ice will obviously trump everything else.