A couple of the report conclusions are worth pointing out:
We found no basis to conclude that the [Climategate] emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence.
That’s clear enough, I think. They also said:
There is no specific evidence that [Mann] falsified or fabricated any data and no evidence that his actions amounted to research misconduct.
A big claim by the deniers is that researchers were using "tricks" to falsify conclusions about global warming, but the NSF report is pretty clear that’s not true. The most damning thing the investigators could muster was that there was "some concern" over the statistical methods used, but that’s not scandalous at all; there’s always some argument in science over methodology. The vague language of the report there indicates to me this isn’t a big deal, or else they would’ve been specific. The big point is that the data were not faked.
