Dead batteries melt ice

In my morning reading I come across two articles which as often happens in the realm of the AGW literature, seem to be at odds with each other.

One is a story from the UK Telegraph "Pen Hadow admits battery was the problem on Arctic climate change expedition" A story of the problems encountered during this intrepid explorer's adventures this past year for the insurance industry and Prince Charles. The travails of "explorer" Hadow and his battery problems are not what interest me but this often repeated claim which we hear ad nausea in the media.

But he insisted the trek was still a success as the team managed to take
hundreds of measurements of the sea ice using a traditional drill. The average
thickness of ice floes was 1.77 metres, suggesting the ice sheet is now largely
made up of first year ice rather than "multiyear" ice that will have built up
over time. Cambrige University scientists who analysed the data said it proved global warming is happening faster than ever and the Arctic could be largely ice free within a decade.

Putting side the absolute farce of the expedition and their "readings" one wonders how the highlighted sentence can be true if the second article is also true.

From Watts Up With That? this morning we read "Arctic temperatures above 80°N are the lowest in six years"

According to the Danish Meteorological Institute, Arctic temperatures are
currently below 238K (-35.15 degrees Celsius or -31.27 degrees
Fahrenheit)
That is more than five degrees below normal (the green line) and
the lowest reading since 2004. The slope of decline has also recently been quite
sharp, dropping from 252K on January 1, a drop of 14 degrees in 22 days

And they provide us with these nifty charts to show us the recent trends:

and a slightly longer view:


Now call me skeptical-please, but what in the recent temperature record would cause any legitimate scientist to conclude that "global warming is happening faster than ever and the Arctic could be largely ice free within a decade."

It has always been my understanding that when it gets colder the likelihood is that more ice will form rather than melt but then again I don't have dead batteries to investigate the phenomena.

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