Climate News Network: First: the story so far. For a few days in July 2012, almost 97% of the surface of Greenland began suddenly to thaw. This was a melt on an unprecedented scale. Greenland carries a burden of three million cubic kilometres of ice and even in the summer, most of it stays frozen, partly because of the islands high latitude and partly because ice reflects sunlight, and tends normally to serve as its own insulator. The event was so unusual, and so unexpected, and on such a scale that nobody seriously...