The National Research Council's Panel on Reconciling Temperature Observations published this report in 2000. The National Academy Press Website offers free online viewing of this important publication, which evaluated the much-publicized discrepancy between surface and atmospheric temperatures in the global change records. The Panel found that "the warming trend in global-mean surface temperature observations during the past 20 years is undoubtedly real and is substantially greater than the average rate of warming during the twentieth century."