In their report released Wednesday, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, “the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact,” adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.”…

“Hide the decline” was not an attempt to conceal data but was scientific shorthand for discarding erroneous data, the committee concluded. Similarly, Jones intended “trick” to mean a neat way of handling evidence, rather than anything underhanded, the inquiry found…

Phil Willis, the committee’s chairman, said of the e-mails that “there’s no denying that some of them were pretty appalling.”

But the committee found no evidence of anything beyond “a blunt refusal to share data,” adding that the idea that Jones was part of a conspiracy to hide evidence that weakened the case for global warming was clearly wrong.