Good news for Professor of Meteorology Dr. Michael Mann, who was cleared by a panel of his peers in the “Climategate” scandal. In case you don’t remember, Mann became involved in a global controversy when hackers broke into a colleague’s email account and published correspondence between climate researchers, including Mann, that suggested a potential cover up of data refuting the theory of man-made global warming. The scandal resulted in the resignation of a professor at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

The panel, composed of four endowed professors and one full professor, interviewed five professors of earth sciences, including Mann himself, and “determined that there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann. …More specifically, the Investigatory Committee determined that [Mann] did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities.”

While this is certainly good news for Professor Mann, the Washington Post notes that the report is not without controversy.

Myron Ebell, a global warming skeptic who directs Energy and Global Warming Policy for the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, noted that the Penn State ethics review only interviewed one of Mann’s critics, MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen.

“It has been designed as a whitewash,” Ebell wrote in an e-mail. “To admit that Dr. Mann is a conman now would be extremely embarrassing for Penn State. But the scandal will not be contained no matter how many whitewash reports are issued. The evidence of manipulation of data is too obvious and too strong.”

Mann isn’t entirely out of the woods however, as Mann is still under investigation by the Virginia State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is looking to determine if Mann committed fraud while pursuing and working on grants from the University of Virginia.

The entire finding can be found here. [PDF]