Can we read graphs? Can we understand elementary statistics?
The graph says the difference in the curves is likely to be a statistical zero.
Notice that the upper curve is an average composite of 1979 to 2000, and that 2007 and 2010 are presently coincident.
But more importantly notice 2010 is within the 2 sigma band of the the 1979 - 2000 average, meaning at the present the ice extent are statistically the same as in the years 1979 - 2000.
Then as scientists we need to ask about measurement error and the improvement of measurement instrumentation in the last 30 years that these measurements were taken.
And finally we should notice that if there is any real broad based trend, then it looks as if 2010 is trending away from 2007 back to the 1979 - 2000 average.
But I would think a statistical test would show there is no real trend, that the changes are within statistical variation. If there was a statistical test, I would like to see the data assumptions, the statistical model and the critical levels of the test before I allowed any results to be considered admissible.
If this theme is one AP radio is able to pound on drive-time headline news day after day in conjunction with above average summer temps in the northeast, it won’t matter how sophisticated the statistical analysis, the politics will sway back toward global warming, just as the snowy northeast winter swayed public opinion the other way this past winter.