This just in on e-mail from Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, himself a vindicated veteran of the climate e-mail wars. (Note: ScienceInsider has reached out to climate scientists and relevent observers for comment and will be posting them today):
I am pleased that the final of the now 5 investigations connected with the hacked CRU emails has come to completion and, like all of the previous investigations, has found that there was no scientific misconduct by any of the scientists. I was pleased to see the committee confirm that there is nothing in the stolen emails that in any way calls into question the validity of their science. or that of their collaborators and the broader climate research community. The committee found that there was no attempt to misrepresent or falsify data, and no withholding of access to raw climate data, despite the repeated accusations to the contrary by climate change deniers. The committee specifically rejected the allegation that tree-ring data have been either inappropriately used, manipulated, or withheld by CRU researchers and their colleagues. Finally, the committee rejected the claim, made frequently by climate change deniers that CRU scientists and other climate scientists have in any way subverted the peer review process or sought to inappropriately influence that process.
It is my hope that we can now put this bogus, manufactured scandal behind us, and move on to a more constructive conversation about climate change.
