Sea Ice - Increasing or Declining?

Declining. There was an ice age that began about 20,000 years ago and the global temperatures have been steadily rising ever since we came out of that cold period. So, if we look at the big picture on a longer time scale than just the past three or four decades, the Earth has been warming for about 13,000 years and the the ice on land and at sea has been melting right along with that warm up.