NSIDC: Since 2007, Arctic sea ice has grown by over 5,000 Manhattans

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis

Average ice extent for September 2011 was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles), 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. This was was 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) above the average for September 2007, the lowest monthly extent in the satellite record....Since the minimum, a rapid freeze-up has begun. On October 1, the five-day average extent rose above 5 million square kilometers (1.93 million square miles).
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Sea surface temperatures
...temperatures anomalies were not as extreme as in 2007 and were comparable to those recorded for 2009 and 2010. These lower temperatures may be the result of less solar heating of the exposed ocean surface or less transport of warm waters from the south...Over the past few summers, more first-year ice has survived than in 2007, replenishing the younger multi-year ice categories (2- to 3-year-old ice)....In essence, what was once a refuge for older ice has become a graveyard.