PIOMAS data shows only three years since 1998 when ice volume has increased, and in one of these (2000) it increased only very slightly. My question is, how can volume ever increase? Heat always moves from warmer to colder, so it must move, through whatever means, from the tropics to the arctic or, via radiation, to outer space. Since global warming, which we all know is very real, reduces radiation of the entire planet to less than the heat acquired through insolation, where can the extra heat go except to melting of ice? As long as the ice remains it can't heat water or the air over the arctic (which would be only small anyway) I suppose the only explanation is that in those few years when year over year arctic ice volume increases more Greenland ice melts. Is that the answer?