Is the Arctic ice melting and if so is this unprecedented?

A fascinating post on Watts Up With That by 'Tony B' regarding the historic nature of sea ice in the Arctic. Read it all as it's, as I said earlier, fascinating. There are many quotes from earliuer arctic ice-melts, this from 1817:

'“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated….'

And here is one other passage that I found partucularly interesting:

'Page 352 graphic picture 4.10 shows a steady decline of ice from a high point in 1860, the exact time when contemporary observations were being made that the ice was increasing again following a long period of low levels. So if you were to incorporate that sharp dip in levels from 1815 to 1860 into the graph it would put the 60 year oscillations into a better context and the entire series would not be seen as a steady decline at all, but a series of peaks and troughs. The reconstructions given earlier in this article -and repeated under- provides a better understanding of clear evidence of an arctic oscillation. This from the earlier extract;
“The following is a modern day reconstruction of sea ice around Newfoundland from 1810 to 2000 demonstrating the huge variability (which compares with modern times) and perhaps illustrates the 60/70 year arctic oscillation amongst other cycles. (under the heading “195 years of sea ice ice off Newfoundland”)”'

It amazes me that the IPCC and other warmists are allowed to get away with selective reporting and peculiar data analysis without being challenged by the media; it's almost as though the media don't want to ask inconvenient questions for fear of uncovering the truth.