Introducing ‘Environmental Research: Climate’—a new journal devoted to understanding the causes, consequences and solutions of climate variability and change

Environmental Research: Climate is a new open-access journal focused on the causes, consequences and solutions of climate variability and change. The field of climate research is at a critical juncture, driven by a broad and heterogeneous community that is seeking to respond to both the rapidly changing climate system and the rapidly evolving needs of society to manage climate-related risks. While there are already many journals publishing research in different areas of this broad field, Environmental Research: Climate aims to fill a unique role by convening the multidisciplinary communities working across the full scope of causes, consequences and solutions, in a fully Open Access publishing venue. The inaugural Editorial Board comprises a broad array of backgrounds, expertise and perspectives that span the physical, biogeochemical and human dimensions that shape climate and its impacts. The Editorial Board is committed to fair, ethical, transparent editorial practices, and the journal offers a suite of modern publishing features that will enhance the journal experience for authors, reviewers and readers. Through these practices and features, Environmental Research: Climate aims to provide the climate research community with a single publishing venue that is sufficiently broad, focused and open to deeply and comprehensively probe the causes, consequences and solutions of climate variability and change—and in doing so coalesce and catalyze the next era of climate research.

As a new addition to IOP Publishing's open access Environmental Research series of journals, the mission of Environmental Research: Climate is to publish innovative research articles, reviews and perspectives exploring the causes, consequences and solutions of climate variability and change.
Given the crowded academic publishing landscape, and the growing number of titles in the climate arena, one may question the need for a new climate-focused journal at this time.The answer is that we are currently at a critical phase in the coalescence of climate research as a field.This coalescence is being driven by a broad and heterogeneous research community that is seeking to respond to both the rapidly changing climate system and the rapidly evolving needs of society to understand, predict, plan, and respond to climate-related risks.While there are many journals publishing research in different areas of this broad field, Environmental Research: Climate aims to fill a unique role by convening the multidisciplinary communities working across the full scope of causes, consequences and solutions, in a fully Open Access publishing venue.
The challenges posed by climate variability and change naturally bring together different disciplines and sub-disciplines.Some of these have existed for many decades, while others are emerging in real time.Indeed, humans have been observing climate for millenia, and formal scientific research and publication on different aspects of the climate system date back at least to the 19th century.But the field has grown increasingly coherent in recent decades.For example, numerous journals are now dedicated to different aspects of climate variability and change.In addition, institutions like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) work to synthesize understanding of the underlying physical and biogeochemical processes, the impacts on natural and human systems, and the possible mitigation and adaptation options.The IPCC reports thus collectively encompass the latest research on causes, consequences and solutions.However, the main reports are only released every ∼7 years, and by rule do not conduct original research, instead drawing on previously published studies from dozens of different journals.
It is critical that the strength of those existing journals and the power of periodic assessments like the IPCC are both maintained.And, in addition, the evolution of climate research-and the climate research community-requires a single publishing venue that is sufficiently broad, focused and open to deeply and comprehensively probe the causes, consequences and solutions of climate variability and change.Environmental Research: Climate aims provide that venue.The inaugural Editorial Board (https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/journals/environmentalresearch-climate/editorial-board/)comprises a truly remarkable array of backgrounds, expertise and perspectives.Together, the collective editorial expertise spans the atmospheric, oceanic, land, cryospheric, biogeochemical and human dimensions that shape climate and its impacts, from local to global spatial scales, and across short-term variability, anthropogenic change, and pre-anthropogenic paleoclimate.The breadth and depth of knowledge on the Editorial Board represents a remarkable foundation for building a highly successful journal.We look forward to adding even more diversity and expertise to the Editorial Board in the coming months and years.

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Environmental Research: Climate offers a suite of modern publishing features that we hope will enhance the journal experience for authors, reviewers and readers.The journal will consider a number of different types of articles, including: Letters (concise research articles reporting important results whose novelty and timeliness warrant priority review); Papers (original research articles of unlimited length); Topical Reviews (review articles that synthesize the background knowledge and state-of-the-art of a particular sub-field, normally invited by the Editorial Board); Roadmaps (broad, multi-author reviews that chart future research directions); Special Collections (collections of articles centered around a critical or emerging research area or topic); Perspectives (commentaries on topics of interest to the climate research community, including research challenges, recently-published results, and future directions of the field); and Comments & Replies (comments arising from papers published in the journal, to which the authors of the original paper will be invited to reply).
The Editorial Board is committed to fair, ethical, and transparent editorial practices.A number of key features of the journal support this commitment.The journal is society-owned by the Institute of Physics (IOP), and hence all financial surplus is invested into funding the society's charitable activities in support of research, education and outreach.In addition, the journal is fully Open Access, ensuring broad access for all readers, free of charge.(And, during this initial phase of the journal, IOP Publishing is covering all publication charges, making the journal free not only for readers but also for authors.)The journal is also committed to high-quality peer review by expert referees from around the world, including double-blind review and Transparent Peer Review.Finally, the journal offers a number of additional benefits to authors and readers, including the option to include citable datasets and programmable code; pre-print friendly policies that encourage authors to post on community pre-print platforms; posting of accepted manuscripts on the journal website with a citable DOI within 24 h of acceptance; and a journal-wide commitment to providing an editorial process that minimizes delay at each stage-within the context of rigorous, in-depth peer-review and substantive engagement from the Editorial Board.
The initial papers published in Environmental Research: Climate [1][2][3][4][5][6] represent the first stones in the foundation of scholarship and community that will make up the journal.These papers will be followed by an inaugural Special Collection exploring the frontiers of research in causes, consequences [6] and solutions of climate variability and change, as well as subsequent focus collections on specific topics within those research frontiers.And the submission of high-quality, unsolicited manuscripts in any area of climate research will of course be the most fundamental building block of the journal.
The Editorial Board and IOP Publishing look forward to those submissions from the community.This is an exciting time for our field, and an important juncture as society seeks to integrate the most rigorous and comprehensive understanding of the causes of climate variability and change, the consequences for people and ecosystems, and the solutions that exist or could be developed.Scholarly journals can be incredibly potent, and a journal focused squarely on the full breadth of causes, consequences and solutions can be a powerful force in helping to coalesce and catalyze the next era of climate research.We look forward to building that new journal together, in partnership and collaboration with the climate research community.

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Noah S Diffenbaugh  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8856-4964 Environmental Research journal series Building on the established reputation of Environmental Research Letters and sharing the same modern publishing principles, IOP Publishing's expanding Environmental Research series offers an evolving suite of fully open access titles that span the most critical areas of environmental science and sustainability.Environmental Research: Climate represents one of three new interdisciplinary titles for 2022, extending the series to six open access journals that together provide a suite of universally accessible publishing options for the global environmental science community.All of the Environmental Research journals combine outstanding levels of author service, inclusive editorial policies, strict quality assurance and open science principles at their core.