On 18 July of this year, the Japanese space agency recorded the state of Arctic ice extent

https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent

The ice melt in the arctic is in full swing now, and the graph gives us a look at how the ice is melting, compared to past years’ melt seasons during the satellite era. (I restrict my analyses to post-1979 measures, the era in which we have a single, unambiguous, homogeneous data suite from one sensor.)

The ice bottoms out in mid September, after which the falling sun allows the ice to come back for the winter freeze. The record low ice year was 2012, where on this day (18 July), there were 7.3 million km^2 of ice on the Arctic Ocean.
By mid September, when the cold came back, there was less than 4 million km^2 of ice still left on the polar sea. There is a lot of melting between mid-July and mid-September!

So, to summarize, on the 3 lowest ice years, on 18 July there was:

1st lowest: 2012 7.3 million km^2
2nd lowest: 2016 7.4 million km^2
3rd lowest: 2007 7.44 million km^2

So how much ice extent is there right now, 18 July 2017?

2017: 7.38 million km^2

What does this tell us about mid-September, 2017? Are we going to break the record again? Its really too early to tell yet. It’s pretty safe to say this will be a low ice year, but just how low depends on local weather phenomena over the next few weeks. Will we dip below 4 million again?

As I always say, its not today’s measurement that matters, its the averages and trends. Looking at 18 July by itself, the average ice extents per decade are as follows:

1980s: 9.96 million km^2
1990s: 9.16 million km^2
2000s: 8.43 million km^2
2010s: 7.9 million km^2

The 2010′s aren’t over yet, but the average ice extent for July 18 so far this decade is right on schedule.