June and July are usually key months for melt because that's when you have 24 hours a day of sunlight - and this year we lost melt momentum during those two months."
Record global land and sea surface temperatures in 2015 that continued to shatter records well into 2016 had led many to believe that the Arctic melt would reach a new low mark this year. But some scientists, including experts from Reading University in the UK, argued that their analysis of melt ponds on ice floes indicated that 2016 would not beat 2012.
While tying for the second lowest minimum in the satellite era, this year's figure is in fact well above the 2012 melt, which saw the ice cover fall to 3.41 million sq km (1.32 million sq mi) - 50% lower than the 1979-2000 average.