Journal Guide

Editorial PolicyThe journal publishes original research papers, short communications, brief reports and reviews by international researchers on advanced scientific progress in farm animal biology. »Archiv Tierzucht« includes publications in quantitative and molecular genetics, genetic diversity, animal husbandry and welfare, physiology and reproduction of livestock. The journal addresses researchers, teachers, stakeholders of academic and educational institutions as well as industrial or governmental organisations in the field of animal production.

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and public discussion of high quality studies investigating the Earth's atmosphere and the underlying chemical and physical processes. It covers the altitude range from the land and ocean surface up to the turbopause, including the troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere.The main subject areas comprise atmospheric modelling, field measurements, remote sensing, and laboratory studies of gases, aerosols, clouds and precipitation, isotopes, radiation, dynamics, biosphere interactions, and hydrosphere interactions (for details see Journal Subject Areas). The journal scope is focused on studies with general implications for atmospheric science rather than investigations that are primarily of local or technical interest. The manuscript types considered for peer-reviewed publication are research articles, review articles, technical notes and commentaries/replies.

Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of advances in remote sensing, in-situ and laboratory measurement techniques for the constituents and properties of the Earth’s atmosphere.The main subject areas comprise the development, intercomparison and validation of measurement instruments and techniques of data processing and information retrieval for gases, aerosols, and clouds. The manuscript types considered for peer-reviewed publication are research articles, review articles, and commentaries.AMT has an innovative two-stage publication process involving the scientific discussion forum Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions (AMTD), which has been designed to:* foster scientific discussion;* maximize the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance;* enable rapid publication;* make scientific publications freely accessible.In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access peer-review are immediately published on the Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions (AMTD) website. They are then subject to Interactive Public Discussion, during which the referees' comments (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed) and the authors' replies are also published in AMTD. In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in AMT. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussion, AMTD and AMT are both ISSN-registered, permanently archived and fully citable.

Biogeosciences (BG) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications and review papers on all aspects of the interactions between the biological, chemical and physical processes in terrestrial or extraterrestrial life with the geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. The objective of the journal is to cut across the boundaries of established sciences and achieve an interdisciplinary view of these interactions. Experimental, conceptual and modelling approaches are welcome.

Climate of the Past (CP) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications and review papers on the climate history of the Earth.The main subject areas are:* reconstructions of past climate based on instrumental and historical data as well as proxy data from marine and terrestrial (including ice) archives; development and validation of new proxies, improvements of the precision and accuracy of proxy data;* theoretical and empirical studies of processes in and feedback mechanisms between all climate system components in relation to past climate change on all space and time scales; * simulation of past climate and model-based interpretation of palaeo climate data for a better understanding of present and future climate variability and climate change.Climate of the Past has an innovative two-stage publication process which involves a scientific discussion forum and exploits the full potential of the Internet to:* foster scientific discussion;* enhance the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance;* enable rapid publication;* make scientific publications freely accessible.In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access-review by one of the editors are immediately published on the Climate of the Past Discussions (CPD) website. They are then subject to Interactive Public Discussion, during which the referees' comments (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed) and the authors' replies are also published in CPD. In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in CP. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussion, CPD and CP are both ISSN-registered, permanently archived and fully citable.

After proofs are corrected by the authors, articles appear online (fast-track articles on the Ingenta website of the journal) and are immediately citable through their final DOI, without having to wait for pagination. There is a double benefit in this procedure: (i) more rapid publication and citation for the author; (ii) regular articles are not delayed by the publication of special or thematic issues, nor are the early papers of a special issue delayed by slower ones. The latter point was quite relevant in 2008, which has seen the publication of two special issues, one devoted to diamonds, the other dedicated to the memory of Werner Schreyer (with a breadth of coverage that is a fitting reflection of the breadth of interest of this outstanding scientist and strong early supporter of the journal). For the first time in the journal's history, these special issues were graced with thematic covers, a practice that will be maintained in future. Speed of publication is a key issue for authors. In spite of a record number of pages and two special issues, the articles in volume 20 (2008) were published online an average of 9 months after submission, and appeared in print 2 months later, thereby confirming the decisive improvements of 2007. This means that well-organized authors who revise their copy speedily can expect publication online within 5-7 months from submission. With an impact factor steadily above 1.2, this should make the EJM an appealing vehicle for important scientific results.

Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and public discussion of the description, development and evaluation of numerical models of the Earth System and its components. Manuscript types considered for peer-reviewed publication are:*Geoscientific model descriptions, from box models to GCMs;*Development and Technical papers, describing development such as new parameterisations or technical aspects of running models such as the reproducibility of results;*Papers describing new standard experiments for assessing model performance, or novel ways of comparing model results with observational data;*Model intercomparison descriptions, including experimental details and project protocols.*More details can be found in Manuscript Types and the Journal White Paper (compiled by the Executive Editors)."I believe that the time is ripe for significantly better documentation of programs, and that we can best achieve this by considering programs to be works of literature.".

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) is an international and interdisciplinary journal for the publication of original research concerning natural hazards. New perspectives for the understanding and tackling of natural hazards will arise by considering the subject form a broad base where the separate geosciences merge. NHESS serves the community of geoscientists concerned with natural hazards and also those interacted in publishing communications regarding interdisciplinary problems arising from difficulties encountered in the tackling of the mitigation of risks associated with natural hazards.

Ocean Science aims to be one of the leaders in the modern generation of "Open Access" or free-to web journals. Much of the literature about such journals is available on the web and links to many of the main sources are given below. One of the aims of open access publishing is to make scientific developments available to people, rich or poor, all over the world as cheaply as possible. This aim underlies many of the initiatives and statements, such as those of Budapest, Berlin and Bethesda.A second, related, aim is to use computer developments and the web to push down the cost of scientific publication. This is a topic discussed in publications from the Wellcome Trust and the House of Commons Committee in the UK. In each case they are concerned by the power of existing publishers to control the market and the reluctance of scientists to move to Open Access Publishing.One concern of the scientists is that the new journals might have a lower scientific standard than traditional ones and that their important "citation index" is low. However Nature (2001) reported that on-line journals were soon obtaining high citation scores and that is the experience of the EGU. Open Access also allows us to introduce new systems of submission and reviewing. There are concerns about the effectiveness of the present review system - the reviewers lack of experience in some key area maybe allowing publication of papers with significant errors. There have also been concerns that referees have sat on papers so that publication is delayed and authors have lost priority of publication.To tackle these problems, Ocean Science is using the two-stage publication scheme developed by Copernicus Publications and the European Geosciences Union. After a brief review by the Topic Editor to check that they are suitable, submitted articles are published in Ocean Science Discussions. This publication can be cited in questions of priority.The paper is then formally reviewed in the traditional way by at least two reviewers. The reviews are published and other scientists and the authors can make and publish their own comments to help the review process. Finally all of these comments are used to decide whether the paper needs revision or whether it can be published directly in the full review journal Ocean Science.No doubt the "Open Access" model will develop further in the future. We plan to be closely involved in such developments. At the same time we want to use the new technology to encompass both integrated views and detailed studies within the same high quality ocean science journal.

The Polarforschung journal aims to publish scientific results from all polar-related disciplines. The journal was first published in 1931 by the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Polarforschung.The complete listing of all "Polarforschung" articles together with links to PDFs and to primary data is available from AWI's insitutional repositories ePIC (articles listed according to publication year) and PANGAEA respectively. .

Weather and Climate Dynamics (WCD) is a not-for-profit international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and public discussion of high-quality research on dynamical processes in the atmosphere. It represents a timely effort to establish a seamless perspective on atmospheric flows, on scales from weather to climate (minutes to decades). The scope of the journal includes the following: the dynamics of extreme weather events (case studies and climatological analyses); weather system dynamics in tropical, midlatitude and polar regions; interactions of atmospheric flows with cloud physics and/or radiation; links between the atmospheric water cycle and weather systems; tropical-extratropical and midlatitude-polar interactions; atmospheric teleconnections and stratosphere-troposphere coupling; boundary-layer dynamics and coupling to land, ocean and ice; atmospheric variability and predictability on time scales from minutes to decades; storm track and Hadley cell dynamics; role of atmospheric dynamics in paleoclimate and climate change projections; and other aspects of weather and climate dynamics. Theoretical studies, idealized numerical studies, full-physics numerical studies, and diagnostic studies using (re)analysis and/or observational data are welcome.