Journal of Climate (AMS) Submission Guide: Portal, FAIR Data Policy & Editors
What submitting to Journal of Climate actually requires: the editorialmanager.com/jcli portal, the AMS coauthor-verification step, the AMS FAIR data and software policy, the reviewer and revision deadlines AMS publishes, and the Editor-in-Chief scope check that can end in a rejection or a recommendation to transfer to another AMS journal.
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How to approach Journal of Climate
Use the submission guide like a working checklist. The goal is to make fit, package completeness, and cover-letter framing obvious before you open the portal.
Stage | What to check |
|---|---|
1. Scope | Confirm JCli fit versus AMS sister journals |
2. Package | Prepare manuscript, cover letter, declarations, and FAIR data statement |
3. Cover letter | Submit through Editorial Manager |
4. Final check | Clear coauthor verification and AMS routing screen |
Quick answer: This Journal of Climate (American Meteorological Society, AMS) submission guide covers the operational contract for the AMS climate flagship: the submission portal at Editorial Manager submission portal, the AMS coauthor-verification step, the FAIR-based data and software policy, the reviewer and revision deadlines AMS publishes, the Editor-in-Chief scope check that can end in a rejection or a recommendation to transfer between Journal of Climate, JAS, MWR, JAMC, and WAF, and how to write a cover letter that pre-empts cross-journal routing.
Run a Journal of Climate pre-submission readiness check before clicking submit, or work through this guide manually.
Use this page if you're preparing a Journal of Climate submission and want the portal URL, the FAIR data requirements, the AMS-internal routing logic, and the cover-letter posture that signals AMS-suite literacy.
From our manuscript review practice
Journal of Climate sits inside an AMS family where the Editor-in-Chief can recommend that an author transfer to a more appropriate AMS journal instead of rejecting. A cover letter that does not pre-empt that scope question (by stating why Journal of Climate and not JAS or MWR or JAMC) leaves the decision to the editor. The secondary load-bearing signal is the AMS FAIR-based data and software policy: manuscripts with restricted or proprietary data need an explanation to the Editor and in the Availability Statement.
How this page was reviewed
We reviewed the Journal of Climate page on AMS, the AMS author resources, the Editorial Manager portal directly, and the AMS Data and Software Policy Guidelines. The scope-check and data-policy points below match what AMS publishes, and the routing advice reflects what authors report.
Source limitations: this page is based on public AMS materials, public Editorial Manager infrastructure, AMS data-policy writing, and our own research for this guide rather than private Journal of Climate editorial correspondence or a large set of Journal of Climate-specific outcomes.
Official guidance explains the upload rules; the harder decision is whether the abstract, cover letter, methods, figures, data availability statement, model archive, and references prove a climate-system contribution rather than weather forecasting, atmospheric dynamics, or regional applied climatology. In our pre-submission review work we see a recurring failure pattern: manuscripts that use climate language but never make the large-scale climate-system claim operational.
We see this most often when the abstract names climate change while the figures, methods, and data archive still support a weather-scale or regional applied study. Editors routinely screen for that mismatch before committing reviewer bandwidth.
In our pre-submission review work across Journal of Climate and adjacent AMS or climate-dynamics venues, the strongest submissions made the climate-system claim auditable across the abstract, cover letter, methods, figures, model archive, data availability statement, supplementary files, and references. Official guidance explains the AMS upload path; the practical screen is whether the package proves variability, feedback, predictability, attribution, or projected-change relevance rather than a weather-scale or regional application result.
What Journal of Climate requires at a glance
Metric | Value |
|---|---|
Impact Factor (2025 JIF, Clarivate JCR) | 4.3 |
Publisher | American Meteorological Society (AMS) |
Editorial focus | Climate-system research: variability, change, attribution, dynamics |
Submission types | Article (up to 7500 words), Review (requires a Review Proposal), Comment and Reply Exchange, Corrigendum |
Submission portal | |
Coauthor verification | AMS-mandated step after submission, before peer review |
FAIR data policy | Availability Statement required after the Acknowledgments; restricted or proprietary data needs an explanation to the Editor at initial submission and in the statement |
Page charges | $120 per typeset page; optional Open Choice $1300 (AMS page read 2026-10-10) |
First-decision time | AMS publishes none; reviewers are asked to return reviews within four weeks |
ISSN | 0894-8755 |
Source: Journal of Climate on AMS, AMS author resources, and Clarivate JCR context for the 2025 JIF, reviewed October 2026.
How the Journal of Climate submission portal works
Submissions go through AMS Editorial Manager:
Editorial Manager submission portal
All AMS journals share the Editorial Manager backbone. Journal of Climate-specific peer-review pool, editor roster, and routing decisions are managed within this instance. AMS coauthor verification runs automatically when you approve the submission: every named coauthor receives an email link and must confirm authorship before manuscripts go to the Chief Editor's office to begin peer review.
What length and format caps apply
Journal of Climate has four submission types, and only Articles have a published length limit.
Submission type | Length at initial upload | Display-item note | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Article | up to 7500 words (body text, acknowledgments and appendixes; title page, abstract, significance statement, data availability statement, references, captions, tables and figures are excluded) | AMS lists no figure or table limit | Exceeding the limit needs a justification and the Chief Editor's approval |
Review | AMS lists no length limit | AMS lists no display-item limit | Synthesis of previously published literature; requires a Review Proposal |
Comment and Reply Exchange | AMS lists no length limit | AMS lists no display-item limit | Response to a published article, submitted within 2 years of its publication; the original author may write a Reply |
Corrigendum | AMS lists no length limit | AMS lists no display-item limit | Addresses errors discovered in already published articles |
The abstract limit is 250 words, and a Significance Statement (optional for journal submissions) is up to 120 words. Page charges apply: $120 per typeset page, and AMS waivers require demonstrating a legitimate lack of funding and must be requested at initial submission.
What artifacts are required at submission
Artifact | Detail |
|---|---|
Cover letter | Not listed as required by AMS (the Cover Letter item type also carries a request for Chief Editor approval to exceed the word limit); naming the climate-system contribution and why JCli and not JAS, MWR, or JAMC can help the scope check |
Manuscript file | Body within the type-specific word cap; AMS Word template (.doc/.docx) or LaTeX template |
Supplementary material | Tables, figures, code, model output as separate files (AMS says supplemental material should no longer be the primary archive for data and software) |
Data availability statement | Availability Statement section required after the Acknowledgments; AMS expects FAIR-aligned archiving |
Conflicts of interest | Fully disclosed in the Acknowledgments |
CRediT author contributions | Not required by the AMS pages read; every coauthor must still verify coauthorship by email |
Author contributions | AMS asks that coauthors have made a substantive intellectual contribution |
Funding statement | All topically relevant funding sources disclosed in the Acknowledgments; collected in the submission system because AMS is a CHORUS member |
Supplementary information | Permitted for code listings, additional figures, derivations |
Ethics statement | Required where applicable |
ORCID | Not required by the AMS pages read |
Suggested reviewers | Not requested in AMS's published requirements; check the Editorial Manager form |
Page-charge commitment or waiver | Required at submission |
What happens during editorial triage
AMS publishes no time to first decision for Journal of Climate. The stages a submission moves through, and the two deadlines AMS does publish, are:
Submission and coauthor verification
Submission lands in Editorial Manager. When you approve the submission, every named coauthor receives an automated verification email and must confirm authorship before manuscripts go to the Chief Editor's office to begin peer review. This step is mandatory at AMS, not optional.
Editor-in-Chief scope assessment
The Editor-in-Chief assesses each new submission to determine whether it meets AMS standards and is within the scope of the journal, and can reject it or recommend that the author transfer to a more appropriate AMS journal. Manuscripts that fit JAS, MWR, or JAMC better can therefore be redirected at this stage rather than rejected outright. Submissions that should be reviewed are assigned to an Editor, and the corresponding author is emailed the Editor's identity.
Reviewer invitations
The assigned Editor invites reviewers, and at least two reviewers are required for each manuscript. Clear scope or data-policy issues are the likeliest reasons for an early return.
Reviewer return deadline
AMS asks reviewers to return their completed reviews within four weeks, and editors and peer review staff remind reviewers of deadlines. The editor consolidates after the deadline and checks whether the reviews answer the climate-system fit question.
Decision after review
Using the reviews, the Editor makes one of five decisions: Accept, Return for minor revisions, Return for major revisions, Reject, or Transfer to another AMS journal.
Revision
Authors should upload the revised manuscript and point-by-point responses to reviewers within two months of the revision decision and may request an extension before the deadline lapses. The revision is assigned back to the Editor who made the initial decision.
Source: AMS peer review information and initial submission requirements pages, accessed October 2026.
How Journal of Climate routes across AMS venues
Five AMS journals form the climate-and-weather suite; the Editor-in-Chief can recommend that an author transfer to a more appropriate AMS journal instead of rejecting a submission.
Venue | IF | Best for | When to route here from JCli |
|---|---|---|---|
Journal of Climate | ~4.3 | Climate-system research: variability, change, attribution, large-scale dynamics | (this page) |
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences (JAS) | ~3.3 | Atmospheric-dynamics specialist, theoretical | Atmospheric dynamics without climate-system contribution |
Monthly Weather Review (MWR) | ~3.3 | Operational weather forecasting and modeling | Weather or forecasting without large-scale climate implication |
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (JAMC) | ~2.2 | Regional climate, applied meteorology | Regional studies without global context |
Weather and Forecasting (WAF) | ~2.8 | Operational forecast verification | Pure forecasting evaluation |
External alternatives:
- Geophysical Research Letters (AGU, IF ~4.6): broader earth/space-science letters format, faster decision
- Climate Dynamics (Springer, IF ~3.7): closest scope twin for climate-dynamics work
- Nature Climate Change (Nature, IF ~27): broader climate impact and policy framing required
The routing rule: state in the cover letter why Journal of Climate and not JAS, MWR, JAMC, or WAF. A cover letter that signals AMS-suite literacy (by naming the routing decision) can make the Editor-in-Chief's scope assessment easier.
What Journal of Climate editors screen for
Journal of Climate editors screen on three operational signals beyond the coauthor-verification gate:
- Climate-system contribution explicit. The manuscript must contribute to understanding large-scale climate variability, climate change, or climate-system dynamics. Pure weather, pure forecasting, or pure atmospheric-dynamics work can be rejected or redirected to MWR, WAF, or JAS at the scope assessment.
- AMS-internal routing pre-empted. The cover letter should state why Journal of Climate fits better than JAS, MWR, or JAMC. Authors who skip this signal leave the Editor-in-Chief to make the scope decision alone, which can end in a recommendation to transfer rather than direct review.
- AMS FAIR data policy compliance. AMS expects an Availability Statement and FAIR-aligned archiving. Proprietary or restricted data needs an explanation to the Editor at initial submission and in the Availability Statement.
Readiness check
Run the scan against the requirements while they're in front of you.
See score, top issues, and journal-fit signals before you submit.
Recent Journal of Climate research direction
Recent issues span large-scale atmospheric circulation and teleconnections, ocean-atmosphere coupling, climate variability and modes (ENSO, NAO, AMO, PDO), climate-change attribution and projection, paleoclimate reconstruction, regional climate-system dynamics, climate model evaluation and intercomparison, and emerging methodologies including machine learning for climate analysis.
For specific recent papers, see Journal of Climate on AMS.
Common rejection triggers we flag in our pre-submission review work on Journal of Climate
This guide tells you what Journal of Climate editors look for before reviewer assignment, and Manusights checks whether your paper passes the climate-system, AMS-routing, FAIR-data, coauthor-verification, model-archive, methods, figure, cover-letter, and AMS-suite-routing tests that official AMS guidance cannot evaluate from a generic checklist. Paid Manusights reviews are covered by a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we never train on submitted manuscripts.
Across climate manuscripts targeting Journal of Climate, three first-read patterns generate the most consistent early returns and AMS-suite redirects. Each pattern is visible across the abstract, cover letter, methods, figures, data availability statement, model-output archive, supplementary files, and references before the Chief Editor decides whether Journal of Climate, JAS, MWR, JAMC, or WAF owns the manuscript.
Weather-scale result presented as climate-system evidence
Across climate manuscripts targeting Journal of Climate, the most common first-read pattern is a paper whose strongest result is weather-scale forecast skill or short-window event analysis, while the title and abstract claim climate-system relevance. The cover letter may mention climate change, but the figures show one event class, one season, one model configuration, or one operational forecast benchmark. Journal of Climate can publish regional or process-focused work, but the manuscript still needs a large-scale climate-system claim that the methods actually test.
The fix is not to add climate vocabulary in the discussion. The abstract should state the scale of inference: multi-decadal variability, teleconnection behavior, model evaluation, attribution, paleoclimate reconstruction, or projected change. Methods should justify the period, ensemble, forcing scenario, reanalysis product, or observational comparison. Figures should show the climate-system pattern rather than only the local event. The data availability statement should make the model output and observational archive inspectable.
References should compare the paper against Journal of Climate, Climate Dynamics, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and Monthly Weather Review. If the manuscript is really forecasting, MWR or Weather and Forecasting is cleaner. If it is theoretical atmosphere dynamics, JAS is cleaner.
Check whether your climate-system claim is operational ->
Atmospheric dynamics with climate framing added too late
Across climate manuscripts targeting Journal of Climate, the second recurring redirect pattern is a strong atmospheric-dynamics manuscript that belongs in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. The methods may be rigorous, the equations sound, and the figures convincing, but the abstract never proves why the result changes understanding of variability, circulation, climate feedback, predictability, or projected change. A cover letter that only says the mechanism is relevant to climate leaves the AMS routing decision to the editor.
The manuscript components should pre-empt that routing. The abstract should name the climate-system implication, not only the dynamical mechanism. The methods should connect the idealized model, reanalysis, or simulation design to climate-scale inference. Figures should show how the mechanism alters circulation regimes, variability modes, coupled feedbacks, or projection interpretation. Supplementary material should carry sensitivity tests rather than hide the climate bridge.
References should include Journal of Climate and JAS comparators so the editor can see why Journal of Climate owns the paper. If the protagonist is wave dynamics, instability theory, or atmospheric chemistry without climate-system consequence, JAS, Monthly Weather Review, or an atmospheric-science specialty journal will usually be faster.
Check whether your AMS routing argument is visible ->
FAIR data pathway unresolved before Editorial Manager upload
Across climate manuscripts targeting Journal of Climate, a third recurring problem is treating the AMS FAIR data policy as a late compliance task. The scientific argument may be ready, but the data availability statement, model archive, code repository, reanalysis citation, proprietary-data justification, and supplementary files do not yet support inspection. For Journal of Climate, this is not peripheral. Data access is part of the published claim because model evaluation, attribution, and climate variability studies depend on reproducible comparison.
The package should be built around the data pathway before submission. The cover letter should flag any restricted dataset and explain the justification path. The methods should name datasets, time windows, versions, forcing scenarios, reanalysis products, and processing choices. Figures should be traceable to archived output or cited repositories. Supplementary files should not become a private data substitute. The data availability statement should be specific enough that reviewers can reproduce the key analysis.
If the manuscript cannot meet that bar, Climate Dynamics, GRL, JAMC, or a discipline-specific venue may still require data access, but AMS has made FAIR-aligned archiving a central expectation, while saying its policy is flexible enough that no author should be excluded because of resource limitations.
Check whether your FAIR data pathway is ready ->
Check whether your Journal of Climate manuscript is submission-ready →
Submit If
- the contribution is climate-system research at multi-decade and larger spatial scales
- the manuscript fits within the type-specific word cap (Article up to 7500 words)
- the cover letter pre-empts AMS-internal routing (states why JCli and not JAS, MWR, JAMC, or WAF)
- data availability satisfies the AMS FAIR data policy (or includes a justified restricted-data path)
- the AMS package is complete (Availability Statement, funding and conflict-of-interest disclosures, page-charge commitment or waiver request, coauthor verification)
- you've considered JAS, MWR, JAMC, WAF, GRL, Climate Dynamics, and Nature Climate Change as alternatives
Think Twice If
- the abstract, methods, and figures are pure weather or forecasting rather than climate-system evidence (consider MWR or WAF)
- the methods and equation spine are atmospheric dynamics without a climate-system contribution in the abstract (consider JAS)
- the abstract and figures are regional without global or large-scale context (consider JAMC)
- the manuscript uses proprietary data without an explanation in the Availability Statement (AMS expects one, and an explanation to the Editor at initial submission)
- the cover letter has not yet decided why Journal of Climate is the AMS-suite fit
- the manuscript is a Review without a Review Proposal
What to read next
- Climate Dynamics Submission Guide
Last verified: 2026-10-10 against AMS Journal of Climate editorial pages, AMS author resources, and current JIF display.
Frequently asked questions
the official submission portal is the AMS Editorial Manager instance for Journal of Climate. All submission types (Article, Review, Comment and Reply Exchange, Corrigendum) route through this portal. AMS-mandated coauthor-verification runs after submission; coauthors must confirm authorship via email link before peer review begins.
AMS publishes no time to first decision for Journal of Climate. It does state that the Editor-in-Chief first assesses each new submission, that at least two reviewers are required and are asked to return their completed reviews within four weeks, and that authors should upload a revised manuscript and point-by-point responses within two months of a revision decision.
A manuscript in the AMS Word or LaTeX template with an abstract of 250 words and, for Articles, a body of up to 7500 words; an Availability Statement section after the Acknowledgments that follows the AMS data and software policy; funding sources and conflicts of interest disclosed in the Acknowledgments, with funding information also entered in the submission system because AMS is a CHORUS member; a page-charge commitment or a page-charge waiver request; confirmation that the work is original and unpublished; and coauthor verification by email link after you approve the submission. AMS does not list a cover letter as required, although the Cover Letter item type is used to request Chief Editor approval to exceed the word limit.
AMS says the Editor-in-Chief assesses each new submission for AMS standards and scope and can reject it or recommend that the author transfer to a more appropriate AMS journal; Transfer to another AMS journal is also one of the five decisions an Editor can make after review. AMS journals in this family include Journal of Climate, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences (JAS), Monthly Weather Review (MWR), Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (JAMC), and Weather and Forecasting (WAF). A cover letter that states why Journal of Climate and not JAS or MWR or JAMC can make the scope question easy to answer, but AMS does not require one.
Five patterns: pure weather or forecasting work without large-scale climate implications (routes to MWR or WAF); atmospheric-dynamics work without climate-system contribution (routes to JAS); regional studies without global or large-scale context (routes to JAMC); pure modeling without observational comparison or pure observation without modeling context; AMS data-policy gaps (restricted or proprietary data without an explanation to the Editor and in the Availability Statement).
Sources
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