SCOUT-O3 Tropics
Special Issue in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP)
http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net

We are pleased to announce a special issue of the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) for scientific papers related to SCOUT-O3 Tropics (the SCOUT-O3 tropical campaigns in Darwin, Australia with ACTIVE and TWP-ICE and in West Africa with AMMA).  The scientific focus of these papers is on the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.  The closing deadline for submissions to the SCOUT-O3 Tropics Special Issue is 30th April 2009. The Guest Editors are Dominik Brunner, Neil Harris, Rob MacKenzie and Thomas Peter.

Papers in the SCOUT-O3 Tropics issue can be associated other ACP special issues, particularly the one on AMMA Tropospheric Chemistry and Aerosols.  It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that any papers which include data from these other campaigns abide by the data protocols of those campaigns as well as that for SCOUT-O3. 

For example, any studies which use AMMA data should adhere to the AMMA data protocol as well as the SCOUT-O3 one. There are three implications: (i) any data providers should be offered co-authorship; (ii) a standard sentence (see below) should be included in the Acknowledgements; and (iii) the manuscript should be sent to the AMMA consortium when it is submitted. The latter can be done by sending it to Jan Polcher (Jan.Polcher at lmd.jussieu.fr). The sentence about AMMA is "Based on a French initiative, AMMA was built by an international scientific group and is currently funded by a large number of agencies, especially from France, UK, US and Africa. It has been the beneficiary of a major financial contribution from the European Community's Sixth Framework Research Programme. Detailed information on scientific coordination and funding is available on the AMMA International web site http://www.amma-international.org."

When a manuscript is registered, please indicate that it is part of the special issue “SCOUT-O3 Tropics”.  If the SCOUT-O3 Tropics Special Issue is the most relevant to your paper, please make sure you put SCOUT-O3 Tropics as the top choice.  That will ensure that we handle the review process, and not the editors of other special issues.  It will be helpful if we can be informed in advance about the submission of a manuscript as it allows us to identify possible reviewers and minimize any delays.  Please email Rebecca Penkett (general@ozone-sec.ch.cam.ac.uk) with the planned title, author list, date of submission and draft abstract 2-4 weeks beforehand.

If you would like to contribute a paper to the special issue, please obey the general terms of publication and follow the guidelines for manuscript preparation, registration, and submission as detailed at http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net/submission/index.html. In the manuscript registration form there is a field (drop-down menu) to enter the information about the special issue right after the manuscript title and authors.

The review process will be the same as for other papers submitted to ACP, except that the review process will be handled by a guest editor. Only full scientific papers meeting the high quality standards of ACP will be considered for peer review and publication. The ACP manuscript evaluation criteria and two-stage process of peer review, publication, and public discussion are outlined on the journal website: http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net/review.  At each stage, every individual paper is published as soon as it has been accepted by the editor, typeset by EGU office, and proof-corrected by the authors; there are no delays of publication through waiting for other special issue papers.  The individual papers are fully citable as soon as they are published.

Please do not hesitate to contact the special editors with any questions.