Cleared of wrongdoing, Penn State climatologist still sees 'smears'

Cleared of wrongdoing, Penn State climatologist still sees 'smears': Mr. Mann, a doctor of geology and geophysics who serves as director of Penn State's Earth System Science Center, already was a central figure in the controversy over climate-change science before emails were hacked in late 2009 from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom.

Now he's an even stronger lightning rod for critics of climate-change science, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican presidential candidate who continues to claim data was manipulated to prove climate change.

But on Aug. 15, the NSF and the U.S. inspector general concluded that emails did not reflect flawed or fraudulent science and closed the case. It represents the last of seven investigations of the heisted personal emails that included flippant statements and others that were described as reckless and injudicious.

But three investigations in the United Kingdom and four in the United States including ones by Penn State, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and now the NSF all have dispelled claims that climate-change research by Mr. Mann and others was manipulated to justify false conclusions.

"It's the seventh investigation that's arisen out of the leak of emails and false allegations by climate-change deniers who were mining for words and phrases out of context," Mr. Mann said. "This should be the final nail in their coffin."

But he said critics of his research continue saying "up is down and black is white in their climate-change denial."

"I'd be lying if I didn't say this was a major distraction for me and my colleagues," he said. "I've been wasting a lot of time responding to allegations. That being said, the scientific community has understood from the start that this was a manufactured scandal and smear campaign against scientists.

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