Back on topic!
Here's a graph from the Aug. 11, 2008 report from the NSIDC site RWebb posted previously:
According to this, the extent of Arctic sea ice is greater than last year, but still less than the
average of '79 through '00.
Here's an excerpt from this link:
http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
So, the melt this year might be greater than last year, but it appears there is and will be more ice this year . . . so far.
As someone stated previously, there's just not enough data to get enough resolution to make any conclusive statements and still far from enough data to pin these "cycles" on humans . . . and still no consensus.
FWIW, according to the NSIDC, Antarctic sea ice is actually trending towards expansion by a small amount:
Looks like "we" have an excellent picture of what is happening, a fairly poor picture of what has happened over long periods of time and just extrapolation and "trends" to see what may happen in the future. Then, on top of this, "we" are left with an array of
possible causes for what is happening.
The scientific community remains divided with the "faithful" at both extremes.
FWIW.
2¢ worth from a non-climatologist!
Best,