We speculated a few months ago about the possibilty of a new low
record this summer, given the amount of first year ice. It now seem a
record is highly unlikely. This graph shows the rate of melting was
quite a lot slower in early July compared with last year.

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaice...17_Figure2.png

The next page outlines the main differences between last summer and
the current one.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

This points out the circulation over the Artic is less favourable for
ice loss.