Arctic sea ice update

Although this page seems to be carefully pointed in an alarmist direction, I thought the admission below was very interesting:

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis

The more we study the Arctic's shrinking sea ice cover, the more we appreciate the key role of clouds and water vapor. Our colleague, Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, has linked changes in the ice edge northwest of Alaska to variations in springtime cloudiness and in the water vapor content of the lower atmosphere. She has observed an increase in springtime cloud and water vapor over the last three decades that can be clearly linked to retreat of the ice edge.

Also of interest is Figure 1 on that page--note the increased sea ice extent (over the "long term" 1979 to 2000 median) for May 2008 in the area of northwest Alaska.