NOAA scientists cleared in climate email review

U.S. officials on Thursday cleared scientists of charges that they manipulated data about climate change in e-mails that were stolen from a British university in 2009, triggering a climate scandal. The Department of Commerce's Inspector General conducted the independent review of e-mails taken from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England, at the request of Republican Senator James Inhofe, a climate change skeptic. The e-mails included exchanges between researchers at the university and many of the world's top climate scientists, including employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an office of the Commerce Department. Some of the more than 1,000 CRU e-mails had appeared to show scientists blasting climate change skeptics and trying to block publication of certain articles.