Philadelphia Inquirer: As the ice melted, the issue gelled. This was the year that global warming hit the mass radar screen, driven by a drumbeat of catastrophic predictions from top scientists, a jaw-dropping acceleration in polar ice melt, Al Gore’s Oscar – and then his Nobel. His prize showed how important the issue was. His cameo on NBC’s 30 Rock showed how mainstream it was. As recently as 2003, when climatologist Heidi Cullen began her 90-second spots on the Weather Channel, global …