Here's the year-to-year comparison of the ASI (from AMSR2) maps for 19 July.
This year is unprecedented for the amount of ice cover lost by this date on the Russian side.
The 2020 heat anomaly and high pressure systems so far this melt year are causing historically low-for-date Extent, with hard to understand not-1st place low Area loss (but I'm not trying to reignite that discussion), and low but not 1st place PIOMAS volume. Given the conditions, even with the high Extent and Volume at start of season, I am surprised the ice is not in worse shape than it is.
Looking at the deep purple areas of highest concentration and most likely to survive ice in the link posted by slow wing, July 19, 2020 looks surprisingly strong with a larger area of deep purple high concentratoin ice than all but 3 of the 15 years displayed at
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0719 The years with more deep purple being 2005, 2009, and 2017. With 2020 showing LESS deep purple than 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018.
Expanding the comparison to deep + light purple gives a less dramatic comparison, but still does not make 2020 stand out like it seems it should.
How can that be? I am probably giving too much importance to an eyeball area estimate of deep purple, but this is one the main images we use to track Arctic ice status. One unaccounted for factor is remaining melt momentum. My guess is that 2020 at this point has more energy in the system and thinner, more vulnerable ice than prior years, thus greater losses in store for remainder of melt season than most earlier years (2012 excepted). I also suspect that thickness losses are a hidden weakness in the 2020 ice.
I think the High Arctic thickness graph posted by gerontocrat at
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,119.msg275579.html#msg275579 says a lot about the trajectory of ASI decline in recent years.
Compare the thickness for the 2000s vs. 2010s and now 2020. I think that the effect of the 0.6 meter (25%) thickness reduction between 2000s and 2020 has more importance than the ratio implies. That would be because there are important qualitative differences between 2.4 meter and 1.8 meter average ice thickness. The thicker ice is older, has lower salinity and higher density, and thus higer "melt resistance". If so, then the 25% reduction in thickness could represent a 33% (just to have a number) decrease in melt resistance.
(2017 is an exception somewhat, but it was coming off of high melt year in 2016 followed by an extremely warm winter. By my theory then, 2017 with its thin ice should have been another near record low September Extent and Volume. 2017 ended up above the straight-line trend for Extent, and just below the trend for Volume. But the thickness factor does not have to overwhelm melt season weather -- which 2017 apparently lacked -- in order to be true as an important influence).
If this conjecture is correct, then adding the qualitative effect of thicness reduction to the already low Extent/Area/Volume values puts 2020 even lower compared to all prior years.
I'll go farther out on a limb to propose that there is a break point around 2 meters ice thickness. That is about the amount that can freeze in one winter or melt out in a melt season. I have to wonder if going below 2 meters thickness initiates a nonlinear accelerated reduction in melt resistance. It certainly reflects the shfit from MYI to FYI which we all agree has been one of the big story lines since 2007. And speaking of 2007, I think that it, not 2012, is the epic year that should get more attention in terms of understanding the effects of melt season weather and the modern progession of ASI decline. No disrespect to 2012, but 2007 was a knockout punch that came out of nowhere. The MYI ice loss that year set the stage for all that has happened since.