In the interview below, Co-Chief Editors Guoxiong Wu, Huijun Wang, and Da-Lin Zhang, talk about the journal's history and citation achievements.

Did you expect Advances in Atmospheric Sciences to become highly cited, or is this surprising to you?

Yes, we expected to see more citations of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (AAS), but not to the extent that it happened. It is indeed a little surprising to us.

How would you account for the high citation rate of AAS?

We believe that although it is still too early to tell, the high citation rate may be attributed to the following factors: the international orientation of the journal (including the close collaboration with Springer), the periodically recycled international editorial board, and the significant increase of international submissions, the Web-powered review editorial system, and more strict quality control for both the printed and electronic publications. These improvements appear to be very effective.

Moreover, in August 2007, one of our co-chief editors, Prof. Da-Lin Zhang, on behalf of the editorial board, wrote an official email to apply for the promotion of AAS to be one of the core journals of the Thomson Reuters SCI collection on the basis of the demonstrated overall improvements.

For your information, we have also noted a sudden increase in downloading AAS papers from Springerlink (see Table 1). AAS’s publications can now be obtained timely and conveniently through Springerlink. Moreover, with the strategic collaboration between Springer and Google, the accessibility of the Springerlink has been optimized by the powerful search engine, which could partly explain the sudden increase in downloads.

Table 1. Downloads of AAS papers on Springerlink (provided by MetaPress).

Note: * denotes the sudden increase.

Would you give us a brief history of the journal?

AAS, launched in 1984, is an international journal on the dynamics, physics, and chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean. It covers the latest achievements and developments in the atmospheric sciences, including marine meteorology and meteorology-associated geophysics, as well as the theoretical and practical aspects of these disciplines.

Papers on weather systems, numerical weather prediction, climate dynamics and variability, satellite meteorology, remote sensing, air chemistry and the boundary layer, clouds, and weather modification can be found in the journal. Papers describing the application of new mathematics or new instruments are also collected here.

In 1999, as the only one among peer-reviewed journals on atmospheric sciences in mainland China, AAS began to be abstracted by Thomson Reuters (then ISI).

In 2000, the journal established a strict workflow and a peer-review system for all submitted manuscripts. At least one reviewer from overseas and one from China are selected for each paper. Also in this year, with the new enrollment of many internationally renowned editors, the policy of a periodically recycled international editorial board started to be more effective.

Since 2002, native English-speaking editors have been hired to improve the clarity, consistency, and accuracy of the manuscripts accepted for publication in AAS.

In 2005, AAS signed the co-publishing contract with Springer.

What historical factors have contributed to the success of AAS?

Before 2008, AAS was the only journal in the field that was abstracted by Thomson Reuters in mainland China. The international recognition of the journal has promoted its development as demonstrated by Journal Citation Reports^® yearly reports. Please see Table 2 for details.

Table 2. Statistics from Journal Citation Reports

The active participation of overseas reviewers has helped to ensure the scientific quality of journal publications. The proofreading service has improved the readability of AAS publications. Furthermore, with the combined effort and wisdom of an international editorial board, the journal has been improved considerably in both its printing quality and scientific contents. Because of the outstanding performance, AAS has been sponsored three times with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Fund for Key Academic Journals.

With Springer’s flexible distribution channels and marketing strategies, accessibility of AAS has been greatly improved since 2006, which is shown in AAS’s subscription increase and downloading rates.

Have there been specific developments in the fields served by AAS that may have contributed?

There have been several specific developments in recent years that have contributed to the improvement of the journal. First, AAS is a journal published by the Chinese National Committee for IAMAS (International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences) and IAP (Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences). Prof. Guoxiong Wu, President of this National Committee, and now President of IAMAS, is the Chief Editor; Dr. Huijun Wang, the Director of IAP, and Prof. Da-Lin Zhang of Maryland University are the two Co-Chief Editors.

Since 2003, many prestigious IAMAS experts, such as the former President, Prof. Huw Davies, the former President of ICMA, Dr. Kevin Hamilton, the former President of ICDM, Dr. Peter Baines, and others have contributed to the development of AAS by submitting their outstanding research results. All these appear to help increase the citation of AAS.

Second, AAS has tried to follow the frontier development of the field, with organized special issues on Asian monsoons and climate change, etc. These have also attracted many interested readers. In addition, AAS has published more papers related to the Chinese National Committee for World Climate Research Program (WCRP) and regular International Workshops among China, Japan, and Korea. These papers are of generally high quality.

Research in mainland China is specialized in the dynamics of East Asian monsoons, climatic system models, climate prediction, and global climate change. As the key journal in this field in mainland China, AAS has reported a lot of valuable works by Chinese researchers. In turn, they have been granted with honors for their outstanding contribution, to name but a few here.

Prof. Qingcun Zeng et al. were honored with the National Natural Science Award (2nd Class) in 2005 in acknowledgement of their research on "Climate System Model, Numerical Climate Simulation and Climate Predictability Study." Fourteen of his listed 44 publications in the Award were published in AAS.

For their profound research on "Land-Sea-Surface Interaction and Its Impact on Subtropical Anticyclone and the Climate in China," Prof. Guoxiong Wu et al. won the 2007 National Natural Science Award (2nd Class). Of the 10 most important publications, the one published in AAS ranked 2nd.

Prof. Ronghui Huang and his collaborator are applying for the 2008 National Natural Science Award of China. Five of the 10 listed key publications for the application were published in AAS.

What, in your view, is this journal’s main significance or contribution in the field of Geosciences?

Since the launching of AAS in 1984, the journal has aimed to promote the distribution of the most up-to-date achievements by researchers in China and abroad. Since AAS became a member of SCIE, RA, CC/PC&ES in 1999, it has played an important role in communication between Chinese and foreign scientists. For example, AAS was ranked 14th by number of papers in the top 20 journals publishing on "Tropical Storms" according to the July 2006 Special Topic from Essential Science Indicators. AAS is also the only English language journal in Earth Sciences that has been funded by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The increase in the citation rates also signified the readers’ recognition of the journal’s performance.

How do you see your field(s) evolving in the next few years?

In recent years, a large amount of funding and resources have been pooled together in mainland China to support the researches of the dynamics of East Asian monsoon systems, earth system models, climate change and prediction, integrated research of East Asian environmental changes and regular human activities, atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric environmental change and prediction, mid-layer atmospheric physical-chemical process, and developing remote sensing techniques to monitor and model environmental and climate change etc. The new and broadened range of research will be one special focus for AAS.

In the foreseeable future, the following fields will develop very fast and provide challenges and opportunities for the development of AAS:

• After the publication of the IPCC AR4, climate change over the world and its regional projections over Asia have become and will continue to be a hot topic;

• Severe weather and climate events that have occurred frequently in the recent years and caused great damages to the society. The diagnoses and predictions of these events will attract many research efforts;

• Efforts in improving climate and weather prediction models and in reducing prediction or projection uncertainties will be enhanced substantially. People would like to see a much better outcome from the IPCC AR5 in a few years;

• Field observations, including in situ and satellite, will further improve our understanding of the behavior of the climate system. The Asian Monsoon Years (AMY) campaign, taking place from 2007 to 2012, involves about 23 research projects in the Asian societies that will produce many new observation results and shed new light on the existing climate changes.

What role do you see for your journal?

First, our journal provides a convenient and reliable platform for researchers in this field to present their work. Second, the editing service (including proofreading, typesetting etc.) has optimized the readability of the papers. You can now find in AAS many of the recent research results of most of the national key programs funded by NSFC, MOST, or CAS. AAS has become a window for scientists to view the domestic research progress in atmospheric science and to know the developments abroad.

Finally, we would like to thank you again for providing this encouraging news. We are confident that AAS will continue to grow and improve with wide support from our meteorological community.

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
Guoxiong Wu, Huijun Wang, and Da-Lin Zhang, Co-Chief Editors
Springer and Science Press, publishers
Chinese Committee for International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS), and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, sponsors

Keywords: Chinese journals, atmospheric sciences, marine meteorology, meteorology-associated geophysics, weather systems, climate dynamics, satellite meteorology, remote sensing, air chemistry, publisher collaborations, article downloads.