NOAA

In late 2009, more than 1,000 emails belonging to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom were disclosed without authorization by an unknown party. The contents of a relatively small number of the email messages became the basis for the controversy commonly known as “Climategate.”

Prior to any investigations, my initial read of the emails found some unbecoming behavior by a few individual scientists but no indication of scientific misconduct, like hiding data or suppressing scientific debate.

In the course of 2010, five investigations—three in the U.K. and two in the United States—cleared scientists working for the CRU and an American scientist working at Penn State University of any scientific wrongdoing.