The august 2010 arctic sea ice chart from NSIDC - that is, the place used as the source for the opinion quote "According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007" :
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Quote:
Overview of conditions
As of August 16, 2010, Arctic ice extent was 5.95 million square kilometers (2.30 million square miles),1.68 million square kilometers (649,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of August 16, 2010. The solid light blue line indicates 2010; dashed green shows 2007; solid pink shows 2008; solid orange shows 2009; and solid gray indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
?Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
High-resolution image Conditions in context
As of August 16, only 2007 and 2008 had lower extent. Approximately one month remains in the melt season.
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Summary and translation from science speak - arctic ice is on track to melt more in 2010 than in any previous year. With one month left in the melting season, only two years in recorded history had a smaller ice area for the year than we have right now, with part of the year left to go.
And, arctic ice is, if my math is correct, currently a bit less than a two/thirds what it was when measurements first started - so we have lost about a third of the arctic ice overall in the last ten years.
So, in fact, the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre is saying the exact opposite of what that quote, taken out of context, claims. The promoters of that quote are using a line that describes a temporary occurance and presumably misrepresenting it to suggest it refers to a permanent state, when the opposite information is available on the general sea ice page of that same website.
Now, I am not a scientist myself of course, just a curious layperson, so I might have misinterpreted or misunderstood what this page is saying. I welcome correction.