The question might better be rephrased as, "What role did the Arctic Ocean *not* have in the Global Climate", in that it was frozen over with a white ice-cap that stopped it from being able to do much with the liquid water part of it being an icean.

That ice-cap, however, played a very significant role, because, being white, it reflected sunlight back into space, thus keeping the north pole colder than it would be if the ice-cap was not white, and thus, given air and ocean currents going hither to a from from the arctic, helping to keep the world relatively cool.

If that ice-cap melts, then the Arctic Ocean will jump onto the world's stage of significant seas, because wocean water is dark, and does not reflext sunlight... it absorbs that sunlight, and keep the heat from the sun in, which means... once a big enough hole opens in the arctic ice cap, allowing sunlight to reach the dark water underneith, that dark water will warm up, and melt the white capping ice around it, so the hole gets bigger, which enables capturing even more heat from the sun, which makes the hole expand even more... and boom... you have a runaway positive heating cycle that will melt the entire arctic icecap, and contribute to a general overall warming of the planet.

That that contribution of new heat from a now dark, liquid, non-icecapped Arctic ocean pushed global climate up by 2 degrees, then the tundra of northern Canada and Siberia melt, and with that, global warming is out of control, and everything changes way beyond any capacity for humans, even with massive international cooperation, to control.

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