Regarding the unexpectedly rapid melt of the Greenland ice sheet: The hypothesis that in addition to soot deposition from fossil fuel combustion, melting-concentrated exposure of debris accumulations, topographical shape of retreating ice field edges, and albedo-reducing alterations of small-scale surface topography by melt cycles, algae blooms on the Greenland ice fields were boosting the melt rate, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/algae-may-be-melting-the-greenland-ice-sheet/ now has research support: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/great-greenland-meltdown