First Order

The following article is a good example of primary research. The article is called "Modelling Alpine Snow Accumulation and Ablation Using Daily Climate Observations," by R. D. Moore and I. F. Owens. Part of the abstract reads, "A simple snow accumulation and ablation model using daily observations of temperature and precipitation was used to simulate snow storage at a snow course".

Second Order

Primary research, such as Moore's article above, is then used by secondary researchers, such as in the following article: "Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Variability and Change, 1915–97," by Ross D. Brown. The purpose of his article is to "reconstruct monthly snow cover extent (SCE) fluctuations over midlatitudinal (~40°–60°N) regions of North America (NA) and Eurasia back to the early 1900s using an areal snow index approach". Understand? Ya, me either, which is the problem with ordinary people making claims such as global warming is all junk science. We just aren't qualified.

Third Order

The IPCC is an example of a Third Order organization. Working Group I which deals with the physical science evidence regarding Global Warming released its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 called "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis". Chapter 4 of that paper is called "Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground". Within that chapter you will find along with 200 or so other articles the Second Order article by Brown mentioned above.

Order Four-point-Five

The Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece called, "A Climate Absolution? The alarmists still won't separate science from politics". In it the author(s) are critical of the IPCC and some of the mistakes they have made. Are they right? Sure, it's an opinion and they can say what they want. Is there an agenda? You bet - the use of "alarmist" right in the beginning tells you their position. One specific point mentioned is the mistake the IPCC made about Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035. The IPCC was wrong - or at least they don't have evidence to support the claim - and there's no problem to call them out on it, but is this a fair analysis of the IPCC as a whole? I don't think so. Does it rightfully denigrate any of the science behind global warming? Absolutely not. The WSJ didn't mention the article by Brown or any of the other thousands of articles referenced in the IPCC report, or any of the 30 or so articles referenced by each of those thousands. In fact they didn't mention anything the IPCC did right.

Fifth Order

So finally, we get to a citizen blogger, who wrote the article "Dumb and Dumber verses Global Warming". It doesn't take long to find out how she feels about Global Warming supporters, who she says are people who "lack the brain power to do anything but keep their respiratory system moving along". About the EPA she says "I want their offices closed down and all those environmental, emotionally geared kooks to lose their jobs". There is a lot more - it eventually becomes nauseating; "Most of them are unethical...the environmental movement that has lied and cheated and produced untold amounts of false data to support their baseless and unprovable claims...hysterical consistently WRONG solutions the liberal Green movement has foisted upon the world...merely lemmings following junk science...the global warming theory has been thoroughly debunked...The destruction of earth's is God's prerogative. Not a bunch of agenda driven scientists who twist the truth", etc.

So what evidence does she provide? A few blog articles, a wikipedia article, and some WSJ opinion articles including the one mentioned above. So let me see if I got this right? Her evidence that Global Warming is all junk science comes from a WSJ biased opinion which criticizes a single sentence out of hundreds of pages made by an organization which itself only comments upon the science.