NSF clears Michael Mann of ‘Climategate’

NSF : The National Science Foundation has cleared Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann of any misconduct in the 2009 “Climategate” controversy. Climategate refers to the thousands of emails that were stolen and made public by a hacker who broke into servers owned by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The emails, in which climate scientists discussed their work, have been used by global-warming skeptics to dispute that carbon dioxide emissions from industry are impacting Earth’s climate.This is the fifth investigation into the science behind the emails, and in every case, the scientists involved have been exonerated.Mann was accused of falsifying research data, concealing and/or deleting information, misusing information, and deviating from accepted practices for conducting research and other scholarly activities.The report by NSF’s Office of the Inspector General states that “no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results.""Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct,” the review concludes, “as defined under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, we are closing this investigation with no further action.”