I think the profound thing here is that we have now had two low, almost record breaking minimums in a row. In recent history we have had one low year about every 5 or 6 years. This is different!
In my perception, that is not completely true. 2005 was a terrible year, compared with the previous years. And until the middle of July, the year 2006 seem to be worst than 2005. At September it did not happened, but September 2006 was worse than any previous year, except for 2005. Then we have the huge drop of 2007. So, three bad years in a row.
On the other hand, Bremen said that on daily basis, 2011 broke the 2007 record. 2011 start to refreeze early, so on NSIDC average, September 2011 was not that bad. But it was a bad year if you look it in detail. And then it came 2012.
Finally, 2016 was a bad year in extent and 2017 was an awfully bad year in volume until July.
My perception is that we have just been lucky in summer weather in years like 2006, 2011 and 2017. But the tendency is the tendency and we are going to have new records and a BOE, unless something unexpected happens, like we have a huge amount of fresh water that really slows the AMOC.
So 2019 and 2020 are two bad years in a row, but it happened before.