A British panel on Wednesday exonerated the scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate of charges that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming.
But the panel also rebuked the scientists for several aspects of their behavior, especially their reluctance to release computer files backing up their scientific work. And it declared that a that graph they produced in 1999 about climate in the past was “misleading” and should have contained caveats.
The biggest mistake they made was in not immediately countering the attacks. There should have been a immediate and coordinated rapid response rather than what happened, which was little or no response until it was far too late, By then, the skeptics had already won the battle in the media.