Dan said, "This last year was the 4th lowest extent on satelite record."
So what was the satellite record saying 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago?
Unfortunately, the satellite remote sensing age started around the same time as the upturn in the 60 year cycle ~35 years ago. This has been a strong driving factor in the alarmism.
In the year 1806 whaling captain William Scoresby sailed within sight of the East Greenland coast...
Also this from Tony Brown
the story begins in 1817 when the Royal Society used the enormous resources at their disposal to investigate the claim that ;
THE ARCTIC IS MELTING
“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….
….. this affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.” A request was made for the Royal Society to assemble an expedition to go and investigate.
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153, Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.(from) http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
The quote from the Royal Society is fairly well known, however it is only part of the extract. The missing part –detailed under- heralded the start of modern arctic science.
”Mr. Scoresby, a very intelligent young man who commands a whaling vessel from Whitby observed last year that 2000 square leagues (a league is 3 miles) of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and 80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared. The same person who has never been before able to penetrate to the westward of the Meridian of Greenwich in these latitudes was this year able to proceed to 10°, 30′W where he saw the coast of East Greenland and entertained no doubt of being able to reach the land had not his duty to his employers made it necessary for him to abandon the undertaking.