Guidelines for editors

Handle 5–10 manuscripts per year and help to achieve short manuscript processing times as well as a fairly even distribution of editorial workload. Please respond to the editor calls and also consider handling submissions outside your personal subject areas. You can view the list of unassigned manuscripts at https://editor.copernicus.org/WCD/my_manuscript_overview. Please remember to indicate your absence time at https://administrator.copernicus.org/define_absence.

1. Agreement to handle manuscripts

All preprints under review for WCD are posted on EGUsphere and receive an EGUsphere doi. They undergo the review for WCD, applying the journal review criteria.

If you have any questions about WCD's manuscript handling procedures, the executive editors (currently Camille, Stephan, and Heini) are always happy to help.

Please react promptly to editor assignments by the executive editors for manuscripts that were not picked up in the regular editor calls.

2. Initial decision

"Initial decision" is the editor's decision on whether to proceed with peer review in WCD, including whether the manuscript type is appropriate.

• Your initial decision is anonymous during the access review, whereby quick reports (or "access reviews") may be solicited. Your name is not revealed to the authors in the automatic notification emails about editor assignment and rejection before/after quick reports. Editor names are disclosed to authors only upon approval of a manuscript for peer review.
• "Access reviews" from referees can be used to help guide your decision whether to proceed to peer review. These slow down the overall handling of manuscripts, so should be used only in rare cases (e.g., if the manuscript is at the edge of your expertise.)
• The fit to the journal scope should be assessed entirely by the handling editor, not by the referees. See http://www.weather-climate-dynamics.net/about/aims_and_scope.html. Manuscripts deemed out of scope should be rejected prior to public review and discussion. After this stage, it is normally not appropriate to reject a manuscript for being out of scope.
• Resubmission to an alternative EGU journal (e.g., GMD, ESD, ACP, NHESS) can be recommended by rejecting the manuscript as being out of scope and selecting the alternative journal from the drop-down list. The authors will receive a corresponding link in the email informing about 'rejection, out-of-scope'.
• Check compliance with the guidelines for authors regarding the abstract and concluding section.
• Adherence to the EGU data policy must be checked to ensure that the data presented are openly accessible in accordance with Copernicus' data policy and fulfil the requirements as detailed in the manuscript types.
• If you handle a manuscript submitted to a special issue, please check whether it is in the scope of the SI: if you are unsure, please contact the SI coordinator(s).
• The short summary should be checked to ensure that it is immediately publishable and provides an accurate, accessible, and non-technical summary of the article.
• The similarity report should be checked, but do not base your decision on the similarity index alone. In case of a high index, carefully check the actual overlap with the sources listed in the similarity report. Reasonable self-referencing in the introduction and method sections should be regarded as less critical than extensive similarities in the results, discussion and/or conclusions sections. Note that theses are not peer-reviewed publications and, thus, similarity to documents by the same authors should not be considered plagiarized. If you notice high similarity to a preprint posted on another preprint server, let the authors know that double preprinting is not permitted. Contact the editorial support team to initiate linking of the external preprint to EGUsphere.

3. Review process

• Ensure that at least two referees post their comments in the interactive public discussion of every preprint. If necessary, please complement automated emails by personal emails.
• You may ask the authors for suitable referee suggestions if necessary. In case of significant delays in the review process or other rare and unusual cases, you may substitute a referee report by an editor comment or make a decision based on a single report if appropriate.
• Consider further review rounds to evaluate revised manuscripts only if necessary. The recommendation of minor revisions does not necessarily require contacting the referee again.
• Editor comments can be very useful after the discussion phase has been closed to give the authors some guidance about what you expect to see after their revisions. This is particularly useful if the reviewers have contrasting opinions, and/or if a review is very critical and asking for very major changes. In these situations, the authors may be grateful to hear the editor’s view. Here are a few examples of recently posted editor comments:
  • https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-725-EC1
  • https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-737-EC1
  • https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-815-EC1
  • https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2315-EC1
  • https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2628-EC1
• Ensure that authors post their response to all relevant referee and public comments in the interactive discussion before considering a revised manuscript for publication in WCD.
• Outstanding referee nominations recognizing particularly helpful and constructive contributions during a review process can be made by sending an email to the executive editors with the name of the referee, manuscript number, and brief justification. Nominations will be considered for the annual WCD outstanding reviewer award.
• Mail archive: Please cc editor@mailarchive.copernicus.org and add the manuscript number in the subject line in all personal emails to referees, authors, and the editorial support team. This way, the full correspondence regarding a paper is accessible for Copernicus and the executive editors. These emails will be deleted sometime after the final decision on the paper.

4. Final decision

• Enforce high-quality standards for final revised papers in WCD by iteration of review and revision or rejection of deficient manuscripts. See the criteria at http://www.weather-climate-dynamics.net/peer_review/review_criteria.html. Posting and public review of a preprint does not guarantee acceptance for WCD: as is the case with other preprint repositories, submitted preprints will remain permanently accessible on the EGU Preprint Repository, EGUsphere. Upon rejection by an WCD editor, any relation to WCD (both in EGUsphere and in WCD) is removed, therefore rejection does not prevent resubmission to an alternative journal.
• Nominate a paper as a Highlight Article, if appropriate, by selecting this option during the final decision phase. Please write a short justification of why the article meets the criteria (see https://www.weather-climate-dynamics.net/about/manuscript_types.html). Highlight articles are accompanied by an executive editor statement, which will be based on your written justification.
• If you decide to accept a critically reviewed manuscript, please post an editor comment in the discussion. In such cases, you should also write a personal email to the critical referee(s), briefly explaining your decision and thanking them for their contributions. Otherwise, referees might get the impression that their input is not valued. In cases where the majority of referees were very critical and there have been extensive discussions, the editor should normally conclude with a public editor comment.