The variability of the Arctic pack-ice parameters such as extent, age and thickness have been monitored by satellite-borne sensors since the early 1960s. However, their spatial resolution of ice parameters is too coarse to distinguish reliably the fine-scale variability of the pack-ice properties to validate some of the regional-scale interaction processes. To validate these processes, researchers rely on other data monitoring platforms such as moored upward-looking sonars (ULSs) and helicopter-borne sensors to collect the finer spatial and higher temporal datasets to validate the regional-scale ice–ocean interaction processes. Backed by observations, three such regional-scale processes will be discussed briefly in this manuscript. They are: (1) ice rubble field formation and salt rejection from opening and closing of flaw leads; (2) the break-up of large pack-ice floes by long period waves (swells) generated by distant storms; and (3) the decay of first-year ice ridging in a diverging pack-ice environment. During the IPY Circumpolar Flaw Lead program in the winter of 2008, a 65 cm thick and 18 km wide flaw lead was pushed up against an island into a 1.5 km wide and 8 m thick rubble icefield. Helicopter-borne sensors collected the ice properties of the ice rubble field after its formation. The opening and closing of flaw leads and the salt rejection from the rapidly growing ice within the lead may be one generation mechanism to produce the observed ocean eddies consisting of cold and saline water at the bottom of the winter mixed layer. During the late summer of 2009, the helicopter-borne sensors were again used to monitor break-up of large kilometre-scale ice floes into floes of less than 100 m by long period swells generated by a storm travelling northwards over open water of the Chucki Sea some 2000 km away. The swells were present for several days and their period and long wave length decreased in time in agreement with deep-water wave theory. Mooring arrays off the Newfoundland coast have been used to monitor the ice draft and drift of the seasonal pack ice moving south along the Canadian east coast of the Labrador Sea. Ice-draft time series show that the mean daily ice draft decreases in time from 4.5 to 2.0 m during the month of May when the air temperatures remain above freezing. The first-year ice ridges appear to be unconsolidated and crumble apart (dynamic melting) when any cohesion between blocks due to freezing is destroyed by melting. These positive feedback processes, although occurring on regional spatial scale, are an important contribution to the present and future evolution of the total Arctic pack ice.