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 An American scientist accused of manipulating research findings on climate science was cleared of that charge by his university on Thursday, the latest in a string of reports to find little substance in the allegations known as Climategate. 
 
 An investigative panel at Pennsylvania State University, weighing the question of whether the scientist, Michael E. Mann, had “seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities,” declared that he had not. 
 
 Dr. 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 The new report did criticize him on a minor point, saying that he had occasionally forwarded to colleagues copies of unpublished manuscripts without the explicit permission of their authors.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 Dr. 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 Dr. Mann used a “trick.” 
 
 The e-mail messages led climate-change skeptics to accuse mainstream researchers, including Dr. 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,” Dr. Mann said in an interview. 
 
 Like the earlier report from Penn State, the new one was assailed Thursday by advocacy groups skeptical of the case for human-induced climate change. 
 
 “It’s no surprise that it’s a whitewash of Dr. 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 Dr. 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.” 
 
 Two inquiries in Britain have largely exonerated the scientists there who were caught up in Climategate, though one report did offer minor criticism of statistical techniques. 
 
 Dr. Mann remains under investigation by the attorney general of Virginia for research he did at the University of Virginia. ||||| Prof. Michael Mann / Penn State University 
 
 An internal investigation at Penn State University has cleared meteorology professor Michael Mann of all "climate gate" charges, in which Mann stood accused (both formally and in the blogosphere) of research fraud. 
 
 The review cleared Mann of charges that he falsified climate change data, manipulated that data, improperly refused to share his research data and--generally behaved badly by trying to discredit other researchers' work. The panel mildly rebuked Mann for not getting express consent from various researchers before sharing their work -- but that was it. 
 
 Why is this important? You'd have to recall the major furor that arose from the climategate controversy from last December -- specifically how a handful of emails from one university became proof, in the eyes of climate change doubters, that the global fraud they long suspected been laid bare. 
 
 To review: 
 
 Last November someone hacked thousands of climate related emails from the servers at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, one of the world's leading proponents of the notion that global warming is happening and is man made. Several of the emails, some going back more than 10 years, revealed the head of CRU, Dr Phil Jones, scheming with others how to criticize and marginalize those scientists who disagreed with the CRU's conclusions. 
 
 The most infamous email praises Penn State's Michael Mann of using a research "trick" to "hide the decline." What's that? Basically, scientists who used centuries worth of tree ring data to establish the baseline of global temps in the 20th century, could never explain why those same tree rings started showing a decline in global temps roughly after 1960. 
 
 Tree data showing global temps going down didn't mesh with actual recorded temperatures, so pains were taken, (most of the time disclosed, but sometimes not) to use actual temp recordings and "hide the decline" from trees. Sometimes, on the so called hockey stick charts that show global temps as a flat line and then a sharp upward spike are indeed mixing tree ring data and actual temps. Earlier this year the Penn State investigators, like most mainstream scientists, dismissed this part of the fraud charge, finding no "fraud' in the use of actual temp data -- the spiking part of the hockey stick -- which on its own is not in dispute. 
 
 You could call this an inside job, of course, and many will, but when a university formally investigates one of its own scientists for fraud, AND releases the report, that's serious. Click here for the link and you can judge for yourself. 
 
 But for Michael Mann, who was the subject of a hilarious and scathing You Tube spoof on "hide the decline," being cleared of research fraud is the sign of good day. 
 
 Not to mention -- so much for climategate.
– Another investigation into the so-called Climategate scandal has found no evidence that researchers manipulated data to buttress their case for global warming. In the latest, Penn State today cleared Michael Mann, the meteorology professor at the heart of the controversy, of research fraud, reports CBS. It's the fourth investigation, including the second of Mann in particular, to exonerate the scientists. The review did give Mann a slap on the wrist for sometimes sharing the work of other researchers before getting consent. “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 email messages,” Mann tells the New York Times. End of the controversy? Nope. A critic who leads a DC advocacy group calls the Penn State results a "whitewash."