Checked out this interesting link. Tried going back in time for June 30. Did not find much change. Then I realized that the end of summer might be more interesting. So changed most recent date to August 30, 2007, and compared with that date in 1987, 1997, 2003 and 2006. Also compared those years with September 30. There is a very noticeable change using those months.
Indeed, in 2007 there is a considerable change in sea ice volume from earlier years. The question is what is the cause. Some theories (besides the man-made global warming one) are a strong wind from the area of northern Pacific moving the sea ice to the pole area from the Bering Strait, an abnormally warm year (1934 was warmer but no satellites were around back then so we don’t know the extent of sea ice) and the impact of arctic ocean warming from volcanoes (could there be a heat mixing delay from the ocean floor to the surface??). We don’t know, but based on what I’ve seen so far, 2008 is NOT going to be a repeat of 2007. Of course we’ll know in about 60 days, won’t we? :>)