…are actually for September Arctic ice. Mid-September is the ice extent minimum, so comparing the average extent for the full month gives us a smoothed comparison of the entire month over the last 35 years we’ve been collecting data, unobscured by random daily variations over the entire month. The data points do not represent the lowest ice extents for each September, but the average ice extent for the entire month of September. The 2014 Sept figure is slightly lower than last year, but significantly higher than the record all-time low year of 2012.

Through 2014, the linear rate of decline for September Arctic ice extent over the satellite record is 13.3% per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. The ten lowest September ice extents over the satellite record have all occurred in the last ten years.

2014 is the sixth lowest September ice extent in the satellite record. Phrasing it another way, just in the last ten years, the all-time low ice extent record has been broken twice. But no statistical summary of the trend is as dramatic as simply drawing a linear regression (in blue) through all the data points.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Here are some alternative looks at the data, from the Japanese Space Agency, covering the entire calendar year.

Overall comparison of the satellite era:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_v2.png

The last twelve years:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent_v2_prev.htm