Since we're going to hear a lot about his year's historic rebound in arctic ice, it's especially important to keep things in perspective: This year's minimum is lower than any year recorded prior to 2007. Or: Just seven years ago, this would have been a record low. The real story isn't the rebound, but how quickly the ice coverage has shrunk. This otherwise-optically-confusing version of the arctic sea-ice monitor works well here: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_v2_prev_L.png