PENN STATE PANEL CLEARS SCIENTIST OVER CLIMATEGATE
Michael E. Mann
Mann said he was gratified by the findings  the second report from Penn State to clear him. An earlier report had exonerated him of related charges that he suppressed or falsified data  destroyed e-mail and misused confidential information.
 The new report did criticize him on a minor point  saying that he had occasionally forwarded to colleagues copies of unpublished manuscripts without the explicit permission of their authors.
 The allegations arose after private e-mail messages between Mann and other scientists were purloined from a computer at the University of East Anglia  in Britain  and posted on the Internet. In one  a British researcher called a data-adjustment procedure Mann used a "trick."
 The e-mail messages led climate-change skeptics to accuse mainstream researchers  including Mann  of deliberately manipulating the findings of climate science in order to strengthen their case that human activity is causing the earth to warm up.
 "I'm aware  and many researchers now are keenly aware  of the depths to which the climate-change disinformation movement is willing to sink  to the point where they're willing to criminally break into a university server and steal people's personal e-mail messages " Mann said in an interview.
 "It's no surprise that it's a whitewash of Mann's misconduct  because it was designed to be a whitewash " said Myron Ebell  director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute  a Washington advocacy group. He accused the panel of failing to interview important witnesses.
 The panel did not try to vet the accuracy of the science published by Mann  including a famous finding that the temperature of the earth had jumped recently  compared with past climate inferred from indicators like tree rings. Instead  it examined his methodology -- his analytical techniques  his willingness to share data with those skeptical of his findings and the like. The panel unanimously found his approach "well within the range of accepted practices."
 Mann remains under investigation by the attorney general of Virginia for research he did at the University of Virginia.
[TGT] said [TGT] was gratified by the findings  the second report from Penn State to clear [TGT]. An earlier report had exonerated [TGT] of related charges that [TGT] suppressed or falsified data  destroyed e-mail and misused confidential information.
 The new report did criticize [TGT] on a minor point  saying that [TGT] had occasionally forwarded to colleagues copies of unpublished manuscripts without the explicit permission of their authors.
 The allegations arose after private e-mail messages between [TGT] and other scientists were purloined from a computer at the University of East Anglia  in Britain  and posted on the Internet. In one  a British researcher called a data-adjustment procedure [TGT] used a "trick."
 The e-mail messages led climate-change skeptics to accuse mainstream researchers  including Mann  of deliberately manipulating the findings of climate science in order to strengthen their case that human activity is causing the earth to warm up.
 "I'm aware  and many researchers now are keenly aware  of the depths to which the climate-change disinformation movement is willing to sink  to the point where they're willing to criminally break into a university server and steal people's personal e-mail messages " [TGT] said in an interview.
 "It's no surprise that it's a whitewash of [TGT]'s misconduct  because it was designed to be a whitewash " said Myron Ebell  director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute  a Washington advocacy group. He accused the panel of failing to interview important witnesses.
 The panel did not try to vet the accuracy of the science published by Mann  including a famous finding that the temperature of the earth had jumped recently  compared with past climate inferred from indicators like tree rings. Instead  it examined his methodology -- his analytical techniques  his willingness to share data with those skeptical of his findings and the like. The panel unanimously found his approach "well within the range of accepted practices."
 Mann remains under investigation by the attorney general of Virginia for research he did at the University of Virginia.