http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/

^^ There's been polar ice cap growth in the Antarctic since detailed records have been keep...roughly 3 decades.

 

Edit: Ha, I didn't even see the bootnote when I typed that!

 

"In 2004, Dr Hansen returned to the subject. This time, he explained (pdf) that most of Arctic warming and melting is due to dirty snow from soot, not CO2.

 

"Soot snow/ice albedo climate forcing is not included in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change evaluations. This forcing is unusually effective, causing twice as much global warming as a CO2 forcing of the same magnitude," he wrote.

 

Once the snow dirties, it absorbs sunlight, warms, and quickly melts. Then the land and air above warms, causing higher temperature readings. This affects the Arctic more than the Antarctic simply because there aren't many people living near the Antarctic. The Arctic is polluted by European cities and oil fields in Siberia - where gas flaring generates huge amounts of soot.

 

In fact, scientists at the University of California have estimated that up to 94 per cent of Arctic melt is due to dirty snow.

 

In other words, then, Antarctic temperatures and ice are going the opposite direction of what Dr. Hansen predicted, and most of the Arctic warming is due to soot, not CO2. His own research directly contradicts his recent high-profile statements about the Arctic and CO2.

 

Dr Hansen also talks frequently about the unprecedented temperature rise in the Arctic, yet his own temperature records show that much of the Arctic (including Greenland) was warmer from 1920-1940 than now. The NASA graph below from Nuuk, Greenland is typical of long term records of the region."

 

"During the ice age scare in the 1970s the Arctic cooled dramatically, and is only now returning to temperatures comparable to sixty years ago. Most of the other Arctic locations with long-term records show similar trends. Long-term NASA temperature records in the Arctic are very sparse, but most show a pattern similar to Nuuk. Most of the other Arctic locations with long-term records show similar trends."

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/03/goddard_polar_ice/page2.html