Dear Colleagues,

Some of you might remember the poster I presented at our workshop last year:

“Communicating Climate Science to the Public: A Vulgarisation Peer-Reviewed Open Access Scientific Journal?”

The idea presented in the poster was to develop an online journal publishing relatively short, high quality articles in all areas of climate science, written directly by climate scientists in a non-scientific language, which will be freely accessible to the public.

(If you wish to refresh your memory, the poster can be visualized here: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/files/PosterChapmanJune2013_MSBourqui.pdf)

Such a journal aims at covering three gaps:

1. To provide the general public with a free and direct access to the existing knowledge in climate sciences

2. To provide the climate scientists with a simple and reliable way to disseminate their research

3. To provide a structure where climate scientists can connect with non-scientists and Citizen Climate Science projects can be developed

After a long technical work, the journal proposed in the poster is now online and functional at the following address:

http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/.

The journal includes a comprehensive and fully automated flow stream for the peer-reviewing and publishing of Climate Science manuscripts for the general public. It is now ready to receive submissions of manuscripts among other things. Note when visiting the web site that many features will only be visible once logged-in (you will have to pre-register first).

Now, if you are interested in this project, I would like to ask you the following:

1. Let me know that you are interested, either by pre-registering online or by replying to this email.

2. Consider becoming an Editor. We need Editors to take care of the manuscripts that will be submitted in the next months. Since everything is well automated, the workload for Editors should be no more than 2-3 hours per manuscript. You will have a decisive role in the development of the journal. You can sign up on the co-editor candidate list upon pre-registering or let me know by email.

3. Think about manuscripts that could be written and submitted to the journal in the next months. To stimulate the discussion, I recommend you to post your ideas in the forum “Ideas for New Manuscripts” so that others can comment or join. The forum is available after log-in at the address: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/share-ideas/.

4. Forward this email to colleagues, students and friends. We need a core group of scientists and non-scientists to progressively develop the content. The non-scientists are also important at this stage as they will help us make sure articles are accessible to the general public. This core group will play a decisive role in defining the Journal on the long term (we don’t want any denier at this stage).

In case you are at the EGU in Vienna next week, I will be presenting the journal in the talk entitled “A Citizen Empowered Online Platform for Communicating Climate Science to the General Public”.

The next months will be very exciting with much happening in terms of developing the content of the journal. Please get involved! I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Michel Bourqui

More details:

· To get a first flavour, please read the Welcoming remarks:

o http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/home/welcome_long/

o http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/home/climate-online-news/

· To go more in depth:

o The Peer-Review goes in two steps, with an Open Review followed by an Open Discussion. It is explained here: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/about/editorial-policies/peer-review-process/

o The Peer-Review’s schematic: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/files/PeerReviewSchem.pdf

o All Editorial Policies: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/about/editorial-policies/

o Fees: Submission of manuscripts and other contributions is free to members. Published articles are free to everyone. The idea is to start applying a cheap, country-varying flat membership fees in about one year, after the journal has gained some content.

o Governance: The journal will be governed as an association by its members.

· To pre-register: it’s easy, free and non-binding:

o The online form: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/register/pre-registration-submission/

o Some explanation: http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/register/

· Let me know what you think about the name “Climate Online” (see http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/give-your-opinion-on-the-name-of-the-journal/)

· If you have any problem with the web site, or any comment, please let me know by email or use the appropriate Idea Forum (available after log-in): http://www.climateonline.bourquiconsulting.ch/share-ideas/

Michel Bourqui, PhD

Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Consulting, Zurich, CH

Affiliate Professor, Dept Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, CA

Adjunct Professor, Dept of Physics, Université de Montréal, CA

http://www.bourquiconsulting.ch/

http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/bourqui/