Journal of Geophysical Research
Atmospheres

Editorial Policies

Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres is published twice monthly. Three different categories of papers are considered: 1. Scientific articles; 2. Methodology and instrument papers; and 3. Comments. The cover letter to the editor should specify the category to which the manuscript belongs.

Message from the New Editors of JGR Atmospheres

Starting October 1, 2000, we will be the new Editors of JGR Atmospheres and will be handling all submissions. Because of the rapid growth of JGR Atmospheres, AGU has increased the number of JGR Atmospheres editors for the next four years. The two outgoing editors of JGR Atmospheres, Mary Anne Carroll and Roni Avissar, together considered over 1500 manuscripts for publication in the final year of their terms. As our new term begin, we want to thank Mary Anne and Roni for their extraordinary efforts. The expansion of JGR Atmospheres has been due to the high quality of the Journal and the rapid publication of submitted papers resulting from their efforts. We pledge to maintain JGR Atmospheres as the premier journal world-wide for publication of papers in climate, atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric physics, aerosols, clouds, and atmospheric composition and chemistry.

All papers will now be submitted to the AGU Headquarters in Washington, DC, and that office will work for us to distribute each paper to the Editor who will handle it. This assignment will be based on the topic area of the paper and the workload of each Editor.

The journal will continue to be published twice a month and each issue will include the following three sections, two of them with subsections:

Climate and Dynamics

Climate and Physical Processes

Dynamical Meteorology

Aerosols and Clouds

Aerosol and Cloud Physics

Aerosol and Cloud Chemistry

Composition and Chemistry

Composition and Chemical Processes

Starting in 2001, subscribers will have the option of subscribing to the entire journal or 1 or 2 of the above sections as subsets. This will lower subscription prices for those primarily interested in only some of the papers in the journal. With each subset subscription, the entire electronic version of the journal will be accessible.

Proposals for two types of special collections of papers will be entertained by the Editors. "Topical Collections" will consist of 10 or more published papers that fit predominantly into one of the three sections above. These collections will be handled by a single Editor. These papers will appear as a contiguous cluster under a single heading within the appropriate section. "Special Sections" will consist of 20 or more published papers that transcend the three major thematic sections and cannot be conveniently placed in one. In this case, manuscripts will be handled by two or more Editors as determined by the primary GAP codes for each paper.

All papers will appear at the end of an issue as a section that is separated from the regular sections. Subscribers will have the option of purchasing these Special Sections in addition to the subsets discussed above.

To speed up the review process, the AGU office will convert all submissions to PDF files for use by Editors, Associate Editors, and reviewers. No paper will be considered submitted until all text and figures, as well as the GAP numbers, are provided to AGU headquarters. To speed up your reviews, we encourage you to submit your papers electronically as PDF files. Our web site will include detailed instructions, including how to obtain software to produce PDF files.

We also encourage you to make the size of each file as small as possible to ease the file transfer process. We are committed to conversion to an all-electronic publication process, from submission of abstracts, to handling of papers through the review process, to delivery of the final type-set paper, and further transitions to all-electronic procedures will be announced in the future. To assist us in our evaluation of papers we are appointing a team of Associate Editors. We look forward to serving you!

Sincerely,

Colin O'Dowd Steven Pawson Alan Robock Darin Toohey