Introduction & general terms

The EGU, through Copernicus Publications, publishes a number of peer-reviewed open access journals covering various topics of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. Most of our publications are two-stage journals with public peer-review and interactive public discussions. This publication process has been designed to do the following:

• foster and provide a lasting record of scientific discussion;
• maximise the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance;
• enable rapid publication of new scientific results;
• make scientific publications freely accessible.

In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access peer review are immediately published in open access discussion forums (e.g. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions). 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 the discussion forums. In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in the corresponding peer-review journals (e.g. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics). To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussion, all peer-reviewed EGU journals and corresponding discussion forums are ISSN-registered, permanently archived, and fully citable. For more information about this process, please consult our information and resources page.

While the EGU welcomes any original scientific work for publication, we expect the following:

• The work submitted for publication has not been published before, except in the form of an abstract, an electronic preprint, a discussion paper or similar formats that have not undergone full journal peer-review, and it is not under consideration for peer-reviewed publication elsewhere. Manuscripts based on conference proceedings should include a significant novelty compared to the conference paper and the proceedings publication should not make out more than 60% of the manuscript content.
• The authors are aware that their submission will be automatically checked for plagiarism. In their own interest, they should avoid dubious cases (e.g. exact copies of site or method descriptions) by using quotation marks and citing the original work.
• Its publication has been approved by all author(s) and, tacitly or explicitly, by the responsible authorities and/or the institutes where the work has been carried out.
• If and when the manuscript is accepted for peer-reviewed publication, it may be re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License but may not be submitted for peer-reviewed publication elsewhere.
• The authors have secured the right to reproduce any material in their work that has already been published elsewhere.
• The authors agree to the licence and copyright agreement.
• The authors agree to the article processing charges valid on the date of manuscript submission (receipt of electronic files).
• The authors agree to and are in compliance with the general obligations for authors.
• From submission to publication, the authors of a manuscript are formally represented by the registered contact author(s). After publication, the authors of a manuscript are formally represented by the corresponding author(s) specified in the published paper.
• The authors are aware that discussion papers remain permanently archived, accessible and citeable.
• The authors, editors, and referees are aware that the complete post-discussion review will be published if the revised paper is accepted for publication in the respective EGU journal.
• With regards to the evaluation of manuscripts, the editors and the referees will follow their guidelines as summarised in the general obligations for editors and the general obligations for referees.
• The journals' editorial boards reserve the right to remove or to censor referee reports and any other comments if they contain personal insults or if they are not of substantial nature or of direct relevance to the issues raised in the manuscript under review.
• The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in the articles of this journal, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.
• The members of the journals' editorial boards try to guide the review process as carefully as possible but cannot take legal responsibility for the outcome and aftermath of acceptance or rejection.
• While the advice and information in EGU journal pages is believed to be true and accurate at the date each article is published, neither the authors, the editors, the European Geosciences Union, nor Copernicus Publications can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may have occurred. EGU and Copernicus Publications make no guarantee, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Any opinions expressed in this journal are the views of the authors and are not the views of Copernicus Publications or EGU.