well, it's been expanding in the south too. It just wasn't being reported because they could report the melting in the north - which seemed to have been related to winds pushing ice up north on one side of the Arctic, and south into warmer areas on the other side of the Arctic; and an extraordinary lack of cloud-cover for much of the Arctic summer.
Which lends credence to the theory that cosmic rays, not CO2, are causing warming.
On another note: If we had a record ice melt in the Arctic, how much did the oceans rise? Funny how the enviros don't bring that up.