Decrease in sea ice a 'cyclical' event (OneNewsNow.com)

The AP article quoted a NASA ice scientist saying these new data could mean that climate warming is coming faster than the models are predicting. However, Joseph D'Aleo – the executive director of the website IceCap.us – disagrees.

"I don't believe it has anything at all to do with global warming, or at least carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases. It's a normal cyclical change that we've observed in the Arctic going back centuries," D'Aleo contends. "The Arctic ice diminished in the [19]30s, 40s, and 50s. It diminished in the 1800s so much so that the Northwest Passage was open and they were catching codfish off of Siberia. This is a cyclical phenomenon that relates to periodic, very predictable warming in the Atlantic and the Pacific."

D'Aleo notes the Pacific Ocean has cooled to pre-1977 temperatures, and he believes the Atlantic will follow within a decade. He also says that Arctic sea ice will recover and possibly increase as a result.

Catastrophic cravings misguided - Opinion

This kind of fear-mongering takes on a new relevance in light of the newest disaster-of-the-hour: global warming. It's the buzzword on everybody's lips, a major plank in the presidential candidates' platforms, and the impetus behind the "go-green" phase that's sweeping the nation's corporate ad campaigns. Two years ago I bought it hook, line and sinker, leading the charge into the Lamron Opinion section and urging everyone to take off their blinders and fight the good fight against climate change.
This year, after reviewing the data and actually reading the arguments of dissenting voices, I'm here to urge a different course of action: Don't listen to me, or anyone else who claims to know unequivocally what they're talking about. Read scientific reports, not news about them. There is evidence out there, though unpopular, to suggest that climate change isn't the apocalypse we're all waiting (and half hoping?) for. I'm not saying the atmosphere isn't warming, or that we shouldn't take care of our environment, but we may not need to spend 500 trillion dollars (better spent stemming starvation and AIDS) in a crash course to save the world from a questionable calamity.

Read the data, cut through the politics, decide for yourself.