Introduction

The Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES) is committed to advancing the science of Earth systems modeling by offering high quality scientific research through online availability and open access licensing. JAMES invites authors and readers from the international Earth systems modeling community.

JAMES is spearheaded by The Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP), a U.S. based research center focused on improving the representation of clouds in climate models, and The Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES), a non-profit U.S. research institute specializing in modeling the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and hydrologic system. JAMES is an independent publication of IGES.

  • Open access. Articles are available free of charge for everyone with internet access to view and download.
  • Formal peer review.
  • Parallel open discussion forum during formal peer review based on Authors' original submission manuscript.
  • Participation in the discussion forum is free of charge. Authors can opt-out of open discussion.
  • Supplemental material, such as code samples, images, visualizations, is published at no additional charge.
  • No additional charge for color figures.
  • Creative Commons Attribution licensing.
  • Modest page charges to cover production costs.
  • Articles published in high quality full text PDF, HTML, and XML.
  • Internal and external reference linking, DOI registration, and forward linking via CrossRef.
 

Focus and Scope

JAMES publishes research related to a wide range of problems in climate science, including atmospheric and oceanic circulations on multiple scales, radiation, cloud physics, boundary layer and land surface processes, the biosphere and cryosphere, biogeochemical cycles, and the development of numerical methods, model parameterizations, and data assimilation methods for Earth systems modeling.

JAMES promotes interdisciplinary research, disseminates information to the global community, and informs the general public and decision makers of the science behind climate and Earth systems modeling.

 

Section Policies

Review

Scientific reviews of the present state of selected aspects of climate research.  Review articles are often invited by the journal's Editors, however, authors can submit unsolicited review articles.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Research

Research articles on topics in Earth systems modeling and climate science.  Research articles are typically from 10 - 20 journal pages in length, however, there is no page limit.  Topics include: atmospheric and oceanic circulations on multiple scales, radiation, cloud physics, boundary layer and land surface processes, the biosphere and cryosphere, biogeochemical cycles, and the development of numerical methods, model parameterizations, and data assimilation methods for Earth systems modeling.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Short Topics

Shorter research contributions on new advances in Earth systems modeling and climate science.  Authors are asked to limit manuscripts submitted to the Short Topics Section to four or less journal pages.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

JAMES maintains high standards of formal peer review. It is our goal that the submission, review and publishing process take advantage of the efficiency and faster turnaround of electronic journals, while maintaining the high standards of excellence of traditional, formal, scientific journals. As with all formal scientific journals, peer review is necessary and required in order to optimize overall quality and scientific robustness of the final published draft of accepted papers. JAMES is committed to high scientific standards, treating publication as a collaborative process between Author, Reviewers and Editors. Here "Author" refers to the corresponding Author who is responsible for handling submission and revision of a manuscript, and who may or may not be lead Author. 
If the Author has selected to participate in open discussion, we remind both Authors and Reviewers that each Reviewer is invited to make all or part of their review part of the open discussion forum, freely available online while the manuscript undergoes formal peer review. Reviewer contributions to the open discussion forum are posted anonymously.

Manuscript flow

The schematic below shows the flow of a manuscript from submission, through the JAMES editorial office and formal peer review, to posting on the discussion forum and publication on JAMES.


Figure 1. Manuscript flow in JAMES. Manuscripts are submitted to the Chief Editor for initial screening. Papers that meet the criteria of the journal are assigned to a Subject Editor. The Subject Editor oversees the formal peer review process. If the Author has opted to participate, the original submission is posted to the discussion forum, and the Editor moderates the open discussion forum. Reviewers are encouraged provide a synopsis of their review for posting to the discussion forum. If the manuscript is accepted following formal peer review it is then passed on to the production office for typesetting and in some cases additional copyediting. The production office provides page proofs to the Author. When in its final form, the peer-reviewed article is published to JAMES.

Initial screening

Submitted manuscripts are first screened by the Chief Editor’s office for completeness and to determine if the manuscript meets the general criteria for the journal.

Editor assignment

Based on the subject matter of the article, the Chief Editor assigns the article to an Editor who is in charge of overseeing the peer review process. This Editor is also in charge of moderating the open discussion forum for the article if the Author has chosen to participate in open discussion.

Open discussion

If the Author has opted to participate in the discussion forum, the article will be open for attributed comments from the journal's registered users while the manuscript undergoes formal peer review. Reviewers are asked to submit a brief synopsis of their anonymous review for posting the the discussion forum. The Authors are encouraged to respond to comments in the discussion forum. The Authors are asked to help the Editor moderate the discussion forum and to notify the Editor if they feel inappropriate or irrelevant comments have been added. The article's corresponding author will be notified by email when a reader comment is posted.

The Author's original submission manuscript will remain open to comments, and replies to comments, until the formal peer review process is completed and a final editorial decision is reached. Manuscripts are removed from the discussion forum when the final editorial decision is reached.

If authors do not respond with revised manuscript within specified time period (as determined by the Editor) the article is effectively withdrawn and the submitted manuscript is removed from the discussion forum.

Guidelines and obligations for participating in open discussion

Any registered used can comment on an article. To enter a comment, click on the 'Comment' link for the article in the Home page or Current Volume Table of Contents. Comments can also be entered or viewed from the article's abstract page, or from the 'Reading tools' panel to the right of the article abstract page. Click the “Add comment” link to add a comment.

Comments should pertain to the subject of the article, be constructive in nature rather than overly critical, and be appropriate for the context of a high quality scientific publication.

Formal peer review

The formal peer review process in managed through the online manuscript tracking system on the JAMES web site. The Editor, Reviewer, and Author can log on to the site, select their respective role, and view the status of the submission throughout the formal peer review process.

To initiate formal peer review, the Editor will solicit three Reviewers to participate in the review process. Using the online system, the Editor can assign Reviewers to the article, and send a review request email to each potential Reviewer.

The Reviewers indicate whether they will undertake the review or not by clicking on a link in the review request email to our manuscript tracking system and following the instructions provided. Once the Reviewer has completed their review, they can enter their review via the journal's web site. When submitting the review, the Reviewer can specify comments intended for the Author and Editor, for the Editor only, and a synopsis of their review for anonymous posting to the discussion forum for that article. The Reviewer can enter their review using an online form provided on their review page, or by upload their review as a separate file. After the review has been entered, the Reviewer should enter their recommendation for the article.

Authors can view the status of their article through the editorial process by logging on to the manuscript tracking system on the JAMES web site. Using this system, the Author can respond to the Reviewer's comments, and upload revised manuscripts as necessary.

General obligations for Editors

  1. An Editor should give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the Author(s).
  2. An Editor should process manuscripts promptly.
  3. The Editor has complete responsibility and authority to accept a submitted paper for publication or to reject it. The Editor may confer with other Editors or Reviewers for an evaluation to use in making this decision.
  4. The Editor and the editorial staff should not disclose any non-public information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than Reviewers and potential Reviewers. Reviewer reports and Reviewer identity can be shared with another Editor if the processing of the submission is transferred.
  5. An Editor should respect the intellectual independence of Authors.
  6. Editorial responsibility and authority for any manuscript authored by an Editor will be delegated to another Editor.
  7. Editors should avoid situations of real or perceived conflicts of interest if the relationship would bias judgment of the manuscript. Such conflicts include, but are not limited to, handling papers from present and former students, from colleagues with whom the Editor has recently collaborated, and from those in the same institution.
  8. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations disclosed in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an Editor's own research except with the consent of the Author.
  9. If an Editor is presented with convincing evidence that the main substance or conclusions of a paper published in an Editor's journal are erroneous, the Editor should facilitate publication of an appropriate paper pointing out the error and, if possible, correcting it.

General obligations for Reviewers

  1. In as much as the reviewing of manuscripts is an essential step in the publication process, every scientist has an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.
  2. A chosen Reviewer who feels inadequately qualified or lacks the time to judge the research reported in a manuscript should return it promptly to the Editor.
  3. A Reviewer of a manuscript should judge objectively the quality of the manuscript and respect the intellectual independence of the Authors. In no case is personal criticism appropriate.
  4. A Reviewer should be sensitive even to the appearance of a conflict of interest when the manuscript under review is closely related to the Reviewer's work in progress or published. If in doubt, the Reviewer should return the manuscript promptly without review, advising the Editor of the conflict of interest or bias.
  5. A Reviewer should not evaluate a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the Reviewer has a personal or professional connection if the relationship would bias judgment of the manuscript.
  6. A Reviewer should treat a manuscript sent for review as a confidential document. It should neither be shown to nor discussed with others except, in special cases, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted should be disclosed to the Editor.
  7. Referees should explain and support their judgments adequately so that Editors and Authors may understand the basis of their comments. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
  8. A Reviewer should be alert to failure of Authors to cite relevant work by other scientists. A Reviewer should call to the Editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.
  9. Referees should not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the Author.

Publication Frequency

JAMES publishes articles as they become available following formal peer review and professional typesetting and proofreading with the Author.  Articles are allocated to annual volumes and assigned sequential article numbers.

Submitted manuscripts that authors' choose to open up for open discussion are posted to the discussion forum after they have been deemed by the Chief Editor to meet the criteria for the journal.  Open discussion manuscripts are posted in the format provided by the submitting author.  Discussion forum manuscripts are assigned sequential article numbers.

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content because making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 


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