Bloomberg

Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania climate-change researcher caught in the flap surrounding e-mails hacked from a U.K. university server, was cleared of wrongdoing by a U.S. agency that promotes science.

Finding no “evidence of research misconduct,” the Arlington, Virginia-based National Science Foundation closed its inquiry into Mann, according to an Aug. 15 report from its inspector general. In February, Pennsylvania State University, where Mann is a professor of meteorology, exonerated him of suppressing or falsifying data, deleting e-mails and misusing privileged information,

Skeptics of climate change pointed to the stolen U.K. e- mails, which surfaced in blogs in 2009, as proof that researchers conspired to suppress studies questioning the link between warming and human activity. Last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, repeated the charge that scientists have “manipulated” data on climate change.

“It was a pretty definitive finding” that the charges “swirling around for over a year” were baseless, Mann said in an interview. “I was very pleased.”

The report confirms findings from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s inspector general and a separate panel of seven scientists based at universities in the U.K., U.S. and Switzerland. The University of East Anglia announced the committee and Ron Oxburgh, former head of Shell Transport & Trading Plc and a member of the U.K. House of Lords, was chairman.

‘Closes the Books’

“It certainly closes the books on Michael Mann and the e- mails,” Joe Romm, a blogger for the Center for American Progress, an advocacy group with ties to President Barack Obama’s administration, said in an interview. “They found nothing wrong with the science, or any evidence that there was anything wrong with how the scientists went about their work.”

The inquiries focused on the University of East Anglia’s climate-research unit, which stored the poached e-mails on its computer server. The university’s work contributed to some of the key findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued reports that blame rising temperatures on human activity.

E-mails to and from Mann were in the pilfered cache. One message discussing his work spoke of a “trick” to “hide the decline” and others suggested deleting correspondence.

NOAA’s report, released in February, was requested by U.S. Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who called the theory of manmade climate change a hoax. The report found no evidence of “manipulation of data.”

Lead Author

Mann was lead author of the first reconstruction of North American warming going back 1,000 years, which showed recent temperatures increasing sharply. The 1998 findings have been confirmed by several studies, Mann said.

“The way you get ahead in science is by proving the other guys wrong,” Mann said. “There is literally no study in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that contradicts our original conclusion.”

Climate change has emerged as an issue in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

“There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects,” Perry said last week. “I think we’re seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists that are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

Another Republican candidate, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman has said he believes that human activity is causing climate change.

Huntsman is clueless, Perry is right though may not know why, Bloomberg is clueless. The NSF is a disgrace. Recall the story two years ago about the NSF accused of watching porn in their offices. I suppose that is why Mann’s climate porn doesn’t phase them. What else would you expect. Another worthless whitewash from another agency that should be defunded.

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All of the so-called “investigations” which have cleared the Climategate researchers of any wrongdoing have been conducted by organizations which themselves bore some responsibility in approving, funding, overseeing or hosting the research involved. By clearing the researchers of any misconduct they were simply finding themselves innocent.

That the Climategate emails are genuine has never been denied by any of those involved. These messages clearly and unequivocally present evidence of a conspiracy to:

Prevent any independent examination of important scientific evidence obtained with public funding

Manipulate data in a manner calculated to mislead the public and government

Dishonestly prevent the publication or consideration of research not supporting their own agenda

Willfully corrupt the peer review process

Employ coercion and threats to intimidate journal editors

Illegally destroy or withhold evidence subject to FOI legislation

In addition to all this, the comments by their own computer programmer regarding the modeling revealed programming deficiencies of such magnitude as to raise serious doubts about both results from the model as well as the scientific competence of those responsible for it.  Walter Starck