Just like the last 8 summers, there is no clear way to evaluate this summer given history.
Over the last few years I have begun to have much more sympathy with Gavin Schmidt. When he talked about the only way you could predict was over a multi decadal cadence with 3 decades being the minimum, my comment was usually that, in the arctic, it would be likely that the only way they would be able to predict what was going to happen was when all the ice was gone.
However there are trends. NSIDC extent is now at 7th lowest. In the next 2-3 days, barring some significant drops in extent, that is going to drop to 9th as it crosses both 2007 and 2013. A few days later it may, or may not, drop into 10th place as it crosses 2015.
Recent history tells me that it is unlikely to stay below 7th place. However a somewhat longer history tells me that the longer the ice is covering so much of the Arctic, the less insolation you will get. It is not as if we have a massively dispersed pack either, so the chances of picking up significant insolation within the pack are lower.
I am ever aware that 2012 was not going to be anything super special until the GAC, however it was solidly melting, firmly off the coasts and the ice was vulnerable to movement.
Was it really so long ago that we "anticipated" even one sea route being open water, let alone two, that we can't conceive of a melting season where they are not both open?
The trend, earlier in the year, spoke of significant melt. The trend, later in the year did not. It will take multiple "weather events" to overturn that trend. No single event, of itself, is going to do that and we see that weather events are swinging between hot and cold, which does not bode well for extended melting.
Time will tell. I am, as ever, willing to be surprised.