It's misleading when taken in isolation like this for a couple of reasons. First, understand that loss of arctic ice is matched by an increase in antarctic ice; when arctic ice was at a minimum, antarctic ice was at a record all time high. So when you look at global ice and not just the 2% at the arctic, it's increasing not decreasing. Here's the extent of global sea ice: http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/climate/.images/nsidc%20globalseaiceareasince2000.gif (Source: US National snow and ice data center) Record antarctric sea ice. Source: NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum/#.VPnBlHwVd_E Next, arctic sea ice has been increasing for three years, here's a chart the Daily Fail ran with NASA/NOAA data. They point out Gore in his 2007 Nobel acceptance speech said the arctic sea ice would be gone by 2015. Instead its grown: http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/climate/.images/1409435267461_image_galleryimage_polar1_jpg.jpg Third, sea ice and glaciers have a natural cycles (a couple actually) of melt thaw pattern. A lot of the ice eling in the arctic is old alright, it grew in the 1950s and 1960s when we were in a cold cycle like we are now: " In the early 1920s and 1930s, temperatures were high, similar to that of the present, and this affected the glacial melt. At the time many glaciers underwent a melt similar or even higher than what we have seen in the last ten years. When it became colder again in the 1950s and 1960s, glaciers actually started growing," " Kurt H. Kjær has previously worked with his colleague Svend Funder from Center for GeoGenetics on investigating sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean. Results showed that the sea ice extent has been far from stable throughout the last 10,000 years" . http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1481.html Fourth, this stuff has been subject to "spin" by certain (now ex) members of staff. Look at this for example concerning the Greenland ice sheet: " "Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. " Ok, got hat, right in time. Not early, right on time and a 150 year natural cycle. So what was the headline? "Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt " http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html How can a cyclincal event, right on time be "unprecedented" Weasel words that's how, 150 years ago there wee no satellites so yes it's unprecedented the satellites saw the melt. The melt itself though has precedents - it happens every 150 years. Individual years mean very little, over a 150 yer span it's right on time and normal. If there was a warming trend of any duration longer tan normal cycles of up and down it would have been years, months, weeks or even a day early, but it's not, it's right on time.