An independent report has concluded that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit should have been more open about the data in their possession, though they did not manipulate its presentation to put forward a particular thesis on climate change.

The report was the culmination of a second inquiry that followed the publication of more than 1,000 emails that were hacked from the University of East Anglia email accounts of CRU scientists and posted on the Internet late last year.

CRU scientists were shown to be use disparaging words about their critics in their emails and to be discussing ways of steering clear of climate change skeptics -- such as one scientist who said the only way to deal with them was "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit)." A Toronto-based climate change critic was derided as being a "bozo," "fraud" and "moron" in various emails that were made public.

The uproar that followed the leaked emails became known as "Climategate," which erupted the month before the UN held its Copenhagen climate change conference.

Britain has already held one parliamentary inquiry into the Climategate scandal, which examined the research being worked on at the CRU. That inquiry concluded in March that the science put forward by the CRU was solid and that the reputation of the CRU and its former chief Phil Jones "remains intact," a position that was backed up by another independent investigation that released its own findings in April. Critics, however, claim these investigations were flawed.

A second British inquiry was led by Muir Russell, a former principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow, which looked at the ways CRU scientists behaved in handling and releasing data, approaching peer review and how they presented their results to the public.

Its findings were released Wednesday, with Russell saying that the rigour and honesty of the CRU scientists "are not in doubt."

"But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness," said Russell.

Moreover, the Russell report chides the University of East Anglia for not embracing the "spirit of openness" that is demanded by Freedom of Information laws. It says the university needs to improve its process for handling such requests.

A particularly noteworthy part of the Climategate controversy was related to an email Jones, the former CRU chief, sent to a colleague referring to a "trick" used to "hide the decline" in a variable used to track global temperatures – an exchange that led to allegations that the CRU scientists were faking global warming trends. The Russell report rejected this claim of critics, though it did acknowledge that a resulting graph was unintentionally misleading.

With the release of Russell's report, Jones will return to work at the research centre.

University of East Anglia Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton said the Russell report "completely exonerated" Jones.

Jones will now be the CRU's director of research, which Acton said would free him from administrative duties.

Some scientists have said the fallout from the Climategate controversy will make science more open in the sense that it will be harder for researchers to hide from critics.

"The release of these emails was a turning point, a game-changer," Mike Hulme, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, said in a recent interview with The Guardian newspaper.

"Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance."

With files from The Associated Press