The "rapidly declining ice in the Arctic (and Antarctica)" is one of the alarmist statements peddled by the warmers. What they usually do is to get a satellite picture of the Arctic during September-October, or Antarctica during February-March. On those months, the volume of ice on those polar areas are at their lowest. Naturally, because those are the peak of summer months on those polar regions.
There is a beautiful graph for the 12 months period per year, from 2003-2010, for both the Arctic and Antarctica at WUWT, here.
(Check that article, lots of good data and graphs)
See, the ice melts... then recovers... then melts... then recovers... in an annual cycle, year in and year out.
Another alarmist statement that we often hear is that the ozone hole depletion in the southern hemisphere is permanent. Plain wrong. The ozone hole appears during August, and disappears by December. And re-appear again the next August, and disappears again by December. Cycle, year in and year out.
source: same above
The ratio of political science to climate science in the warming literature could be something like 10:1, or 50:1, or higher?