2014 was a year which appeared at first to become the ultimate comeback, but then everything went wrong. In fact in March, at the very beginning of melt, I thought chances of record where vast. Not only because volume has caught up with 2012, but because there was so much volume stacked up along CAA and so little was left in more crucial places such as Laptev and ESS.
In March though, the polar vortex came back together, and ice started flowing into Barents once more. Without this export taking place throughout the spring I think extent could have been at least 0,5M lower at minimum. Then in late April, May things started to go wrong when snow cover deficits failed to keep up with other post-2007 years and lack of heat import brought 80N temps below normal, and despite indications of the opposite, propper melt conditions never materialized in early June. HP-systems did appear, but no propper heat nor any winds to speak of, only crisp sunshine on what seems to have been too much snow. Super bad melting conditions for June it appears, so bad that volume couldn't even keep up with 2013.
July weather this year was boring and uneventful, LP-dominated and too cold, it kind of resembled that of July 2012 I would claim, but the difference was that in 2012 there were more ponds, more heat lingering around and in general more weak ice to melt, nevertheless July was no good month in 2012 either.
I would also maintain that if the weather in August had occurred 2 months earlier, then 2014 would have rivaled 2012 almost regardless of what would happen next, but as "August weather", and with such limited amounts of ponds and slush to work with, massive HP-systems without a proper dipole setup seems to do the ice more good than harm, hence the historic bad volume melt.
Looking back with hindsight, I can hardly imagine that it could have become any worse than this, taking into account conditions in March. And as a result of all this, I would argue that the virtually ice free date may have been postponed with 2 years, perhaps more. Before 2017 seems less plausible every day. Though, I'm really looking forward to see whether we can see yet another "volume catch up" this winter, and I will be left speechless if 2012 is caught at maximum like it was this year.