It's been around since 1951, and initiated some of the early publications on the ionosphere at the start of what is called the "space age." It's a venerable journal focused on atmospheric science above the troposphere, the upper atmospheres, and space research, including the interaction of solar particle fluxes and the magnetosphere and the upper atmosphere. It also includes papers focused on weather. It's an international journal so it's been a venue of choice for many countries, not just North America. And increasingly it's been looking at publishing papers that deal with the system as a whole rather than the individual components, from a discovery, characterization period to one of more synthesis, numerical modeling, and large-scale experimental techniques.

  How would you account for the increased citation rate of your journal?

I'm not surprised to see the citation rates getting better. We've been trying hard to improve the quality of the whole process, the papers, the rigor of the reviewing, and turnaround time. There was a change in name from the Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics to the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, about three or four years ago, which was part of the impact of my coming on board. We went through an implicit and explicit change in policy, slightly broadening the topic areas and definitely going after high-priority integrative science areas that we saw as becoming much more important.

  Have there been specific developments in the fields served by your journal that may have contributed?

The whole field is moving to one where we can actually make quantitative predictions about what happens in the earth's atmosphere of importance to satellite communications, satellite drag, and other topics. So we saw the whole arena of space weather as one we wanted to track and catch changes early on and offer the journal as a venue for that kind of work.

  What historical factors have contributed to the success of your journal?

It's a journal with a loyal following. It's a very successful and fairly nimble second-tier journal in these niche areas and we tried to broaden that. Its long history in ionospheric and upper atmospheric physics makes it in many ways the journal of choice for the field of middle atmosphere research. We have this whole community that likes to publish in it. People obviously expect things when they come to the journal. Given its broad topical area, it could have gone off in many different directions. It does have certain historical niches.

  How do you see the fields the journal serves evolving in the next few years and the role that the journal will play in that?

Part of this move towards synthesis improves a lot of international collaboration. We're dealing with a global set of problems. That's increasingly the way in which business is done. For example, in space science there are missions that are jointly sponsored by Japan and Europe. We would really like to stress the international aspects of the journal as a place where countries that aren't that well-endowed technically can participate, contribute, and be part of these larger efforts. The main thing is that the field's moving from a descriptive focus to a more predictive one and we really want to keep track of that. Part of that is the shift towards more electronic means of distribution. We'll be concerning ourselves with large data sets, CD supplements, and online access.

  How do you envision the state of knowledge in your field 10 years from now?

It will be transformed in many ways. The analogy in my mind is weather forecasting. In the 1930s people started to think with some temerity about the ability to forecast weather more precisely using computers. Over the last 40 years there's been a steady increase in skill with which we're able to do that. The field of upper atmospheric research is way back there, with the first predictive models just starting to become available. The move from research to operations is something we're not going to shy away from. It's still going to be a basic research journal but this move opens up a whole new arena for quantitative work. There will be a national space weather service in the next 10 years and we will be predicting things based on a large volume of basic research and we hope much of that will be published in our journal.

  What are the greatest challenges for publishing in this field?

From the perspective of authors, it's a pretty competitive field. University groups are finding it harder to get resources. Grant sizes dropped a little bit. So there's stress in our community. Publishing quickly, with minimal page charges, and with access to electronic services are all inducements that serve the community and we want to do that.

In terms of the journal, since we're not Nature or Science, or, in our field, the Journal of Geophysical Research, we have to play an important supportive role and have to be a little bit more flexible in the whole process in streamlining in terms of the kinds of papers we accept—major long review articles occasionally, also quick notes, electronic supplements. The move to electronic submission in general is, for the whole enterprise, a major challenge.

  To what kinds of practical or technological applications is the research published in your journal likely to contribute?

Many practical applications will be uncovered: predicting the energetic particle environment encountered by space-born computer chips, predicting the number of reboosts that take place with the space station because of satellite drag, predicting the likelihood of interference in communication pathways at equatorial latitudes. Society as a whole depends more on space technology. We all rely on cell phones and Internet applications. The stability of that is in part dependent on solar weather, severe events on the sun that affect the ionospheric currents, which have been known to blow transformers.

  Are there significant controversies affecting your journal or field at this time?

We have one, and this is the influence of solar activity on weather and climate. This is an area in which there has been a mixed bag of papers published in the past. That field has suffered from a sense that poor research has been allowed out and yet a number of people are doing interesting quantitative work in this arena. This whole field is looked at askance by many in the community, and our journal is a place where those papers get published, so we often see the sparks fly.

  What, in your view, is this journal's main significance or contribution in this field?

It's a truly international accessible journal that is looking at this synthesis issue—the whole system as opposed to one piece of the system. The pieces are the troposphere, the ionosphere, and the mesosphere. All these spheres have been studied somewhat in isolation, not completely, but certainly there's been a reductionist approach that is now enabling the next wave of activity. It's a challenging and exciting time and I think the journal will play a role in that if we can keep our standards high.

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Dr. Timothy L. Killeen, Editor-in-Chief
Elsevier Science, publishers