I am thrilled to announce that the first issue of AGU Advances, AGU’s new flagship journal, is now online.
AGU Advances is a highly selective, gold open-access journal that publishes seminal research across the Earth and space sciences and related interdisciplinary fields. This research includes full-length research articles that advance our science and commentaries that discuss recent scientific results or trends and put them in context for a broader audience. Our editorial team also highlights important research published in Earth and space science and provides additional editorial content.
In AGU Advances, we aim to publish papers with immediate impact within a field.
The research papers and associated content included in this first issue provide a great demonstration of the breadth of new research being published in Earth and space science, as well as excellent examples of the kinds of research papers and commentaries this influential journal will publish.
In AGU Advances, we aim to publish papers with immediate impact within a field that answer an important question or provide results that change the way researchers approach the problem in the future. Diamond et al. analyzed long-term satellite observations in a unique region over the ocean to provide a robust quantification of the impact of shipping-produced aerosols on Earth’s atmospheric heat exchange associated with low clouds. Their estimate provides a much-needed measurement of the influence of aerosol particles on cloud reflectivity that can be used to constrain the effect of similar aerosol-cloud effects on the global energy balance.
Papers with convergent impact span multiple fields to present an important result that could not be achieved without collaboration. Palmroth et al. coordinated observations from camera-wielding citizen scientists to discover and explain a new type of subauroral optical emission consisting of regular waves (“the dunes”). This research has additional impact in that the mechanism the authors suggest to explain this phenomenon provides a window into the dynamics of the mesosphere, the layer above the stratosphere, that are difficult to study using standard observation techniques.
AGU Advances also provides timely commentaries that put scientific developments into a broadly understandable perspective.
Finally, we are looking for papers that have societal impact. Yin et al. combined new satellite observations to quantify how the large floods that delayed crop planting across the U.S. Midwest in 2019 affected subsequent crop productivity. The new study shows that a model of crop productivity driven by new satellite measurements of plant photosynthesis is in-line with an analysis of the regional decline in carbon dioxide driven by plant growth. This study provides a test for how effective this multisatellite approach is for measuring regional carbon dioxide changes, which is a must for future carbon monitoring systems.
AGU Advances also provides timely commentaries that put scientific developments into a broadly understandable perspective. Our first issue has two good examples. The commentary by Jolivet and Frank seeks to find commonalities across the many methods and tectonic settings where aseismic (slow) slip has been observed to advance understanding of this important energy release mechanism in fault zones. Xie summarizes the critical importance of ocean warming patterns for understanding overall planetary warming and climate sensitivity by highlighting how atmospheric and ocean dynamics interact with observed patterns of ocean warming on both regional and interhemispheric scales.
Along with publication of these important articles, AGU has also supported this research with additional outreach to the press and public. A new electronic digest will accompany each issue of AGU Advances, providing an accessible and digestible way to stay up-to-date on the latest research in the new journal and in other journals chosen by our editors.
We hope you will stay tuned for future issues of this journal and, more importantly, that you will help us make AGU Advances a premier journal for high-impact Earth and space science by submitting your best work to us.
—Susan Trumbore (trumbore@bgc-jena.mpg.de), Editor in Chief, AGU Advances
Citation:
Trumbore, S. (2020), First issue of AGU Advances highlights influential science, Eos, 101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO142493. Published on 09 April 2020.
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