The British scientists at the center of the so-called climategate uproar over things they said in e-mails have been "largely vindicated" by the first of several investigations into their actions, the Associated Press writes.

But, as a new report from the House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee states:

"The disclosed e-mails appear to show a culture of non-disclosure at CRU (the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia) and instances where information may have been deleted, to avoid disclosure. We found prima facie evidence to suggest that the UEA found ways to support the culture at CRU of resisting disclosure of information to climate change sceptics. The failure of UEA to grasp fully the potential damage to CRU and UEA by the non-disclosure of FOIA requests was regrettable. UEA needs to review its policy towards FOIA and re-assess how it can support academics whose expertise in this area is limited."

As The Guardian writes, "MPs today strongly criticized the University of East Anglia for not tackling a 'culture of withholding information' among the climate change scientists whose private emails caused a furor after being leaked online in November."

Or, as the BBC puts it, "MPs investigating the climate change row at the U.K.'s University of East Anglia (UEA) have demanded greater transparency from climate scientists."

Climategate began late last year when e-mails from some leading researchers on climate change — most notably CRU Director Phil Jones — were leaked to Britain's Telegraph. One e-mail in particular, in which a "trick" was discussed and there was mention of a need to "hide the decline" in data about temperatures particularly raised eyebrows.

Today's report from the Commons committee says that:

"We are content that the phrases such as 'trick' or 'hiding the decline' were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead. Likewise the evidence that we have seen does not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process. Academics should not be criticized for making informal comments on academic papers."