Timing.
I’m back from Greenland for a week and all hell breaks loose.

Fires burning not far from the area where I was camped a few weeks ago, Russell Glacier area near Kangerlussuaq.
The video above shows what the Tundra surface is like.  Thick, soft mat of moss, lichen,  grasses and flowers. Below, Hydrologist Asa (Oh-Sah) Rennermalm of Rutgers describes surface processes affecting the permafrost.

ThinkProgress:

Thousands of acres of permafrost are burning in what appears to be Greenland’s biggest fire on record. And climate scientists are freaking out not just because the massive fires are unusual, but because they release large amounts of greenhouse gases and speed up the melt of the ice sheet and the carbon-rich permafrost.