Instructions for authors

Preamble

Only articles which meet the aims and scope and quality criteria of the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate (JSWSC) may be accepted for publication. Scientific quality, relevance and overall interest to the space weather and space climate (SWSC) communities are the overarching criteria to be applied. Articles can be accepted for publication only after anonymous review by at least two experts not affiliated with JSWSC (external peer review).

Articles accepted for publication and for which APC are paid will be published in electronic form only. The copyright is retained by the author(s) under the Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction provided the original work is properly cited.

The Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate is a gold open access journal. As such, it is freely and widely available via the Internet to all readers. Instead of relying on paid subscriptions, accepted authors pay a publication fee called Article Processing Charge (APC) to ensure the long term sustainability of the journal.

If you are working at one of these French Institutions and are corresponding author for your paper, your publication costs will be centrally covered by the National Agreement.

All articles published by the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found on https://www.edpsciences.org/fr/open-access.

Article types

JSWSC publishes several types of articles. The most suitable one must be selected during the submission process. The type may be changed during the review process upon recommendation by the editors and subsequent agreement by the authors.

Research Articles present novel research results that advance understanding of the physics which governs space weather and space climate.

Technical Articles present (i) significant new data sets made available to the SWSC community or (ii) new instrumentation that benefits the SWSC community, or (iii) new methods, models, algorithms and data analysis techniques that enable novel scientific research or advanced operational procedures.

Scientific Reviews present a brief historical evolution of the field, a detailed description of the state of the art of science of the field, and open research questions and challenges.

Historical events and observations present hitherto unpublished older data where the term "historical " refers approximately to epochs prior to the space age or digital data acquisition age.

Strategic and programmatic articles present broader concepts for advancing research and applications in space weather and space climate such as concepts for research and observation networks and their scientific justification, and roadmaps.

Education and public outreach reports present realisations of concepts and novel activities in science education and outreach at any level of education with emphasis on space weather or space climate.

Project reports present reviews of significant scientific achievements of space weather or space climate research projects and novel results obtained. Project proposals or presentations of ideas for undertaking specific research projects are not covered by this type.

Comment and Reply concern comments on an article published previously in JSWSC to which the corresponding author of that article will be invited to reply.

The submission stage

The Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate considers only articles for publication which have been approved by all co-authors and which have not been published elsewhere and are not currently under consideration by another journal.

Authors are requested to submit their manuscripts electronically through the JSWSC website, see online submission. A Latex2e package, adapted to JSWSC, is available for download, but the use of this package is not mandatory. Any other Latex package or text processor may be used as long as the manuscript style requirements are met. The manuscript must be pre-compiled with figures and tables embedded, and only a PDF version of the complete manuscript must be submitted. Editable source files will be required at the acceptance stage. Note that the format of the published version will differ from the submitted version, due to the typesetting software used in the production process.

The peer review process

Each submitted manuscript undergoes a technical check for compliance with JSWSC style requirements. If not compliant the manuscript is sent back to the corresponding author with the request to correct it accordingly and submit it again. A resubmission for technical or style reasons does not count as a formal revision. It is a simple replacement of the previous article version by a new version.

A manuscript that has passed the technical check will be evaluated by several editors, including the Editors-in-Chief and the Managing Editor, to determine whether it meets the aims and scope and quality standard of JSWSC.

When submitting a revised manuscript upon a formal editor decision a clean and an annotated version, accompanied by a response letter to the Reviewers and the Editors (if applicable), must be submitted unless instructed otherwise by the editor. The review process may require more than one author-reviewer iteration.

After having been accepted for publication the submission is transferred to the publisher. Together with a PDF version of the final manuscript an editable electronic version in one of the following formats is required: for the text LaTeX/LaTeX2e, Word, RTF; for the figures EPS, TIF, JPG, PNG, in high resolution (≥300 dpi). The publisher will provide more detailed instructions and should be contacted in case of questions. The editors do not have access to the article publication cycle and cannot answer questions related to production and billing.

Style Guide

General Remarks

Manuscripts must be written in English language. Both UK and US English are accepted, but the selected version should be used consistently throughout the manuscript.

In order to facilitate peer review the manuscript must be submitted in single-column format using 12-point font and 1.15 line spacing. Pages and lines must be numbered continuously (i.e., not starting each new page with line 1). If the authors have used a figure or a table from another publication (including the authors' own publications), the source of the material must be clearly stated and, if applicable, permission for the reproduction must be obtained from the publisher concerned.

The manuscript should in general be presented as follows:

• Title
• Author forenames and surnames
• Author affiliations
• e-mail of Corresponding Author
• Abstract
• Free-text Keywords (not Keypoints)
• Introduction
• Data and Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments (optional)
• Funding (mandatory)
• Conflict of interests (optional)
• Data Availability (mandatory)
• References
• Annexes (if applicable)

The title

The title should be short, accurate and communicative. A good title helps to attract the readers' attention. Acronyms should be avoided, most acronyms are understood by specialists only.

The abstract

The abstract should summarise the essence of the article in an informative and concise way.

JSWSC supports the use of structured abstracts. Similar to a traditional abstract, a structured abstract summarises the content of the article, but in an explicitly structured way. It uses headings that precede short paragraphs. Three paragraphs, entitled "Aims", "Methods", and "Results", are mandatory. If appropriate, the structured abstract may use an introductory paragraph entitled "Context", and a final paragraph entitled "Conclusions". Note that the use of a structured abstract is not mandatory. Authors who prefer the traditional form are, however, encouraged to implicitly follow the logical structure indicated above.

Sections

Section and subsection headings should be numbered following the international numbering system (1., 1.1., 1.1.1., etc.).

Punctuation characteristics of the English language should be used. Full stops, semicolons, colons, question marks and exclamation marks are not preceded by a space. No space should be left between opening bracket and the following characters or closing bracket and the preceding characters.

Symbols, Equations and Numbers

Writing of measurements, data and symbols must adhere to recommendations by the International Standard Organisation (ISO). They should always be written in italic.

SI units must be used. The unit "litre" should be abbreviated as "L" (also mL, µL, etc.), minutes as min, temperature as °C or K. All units should be typeset in Roman. Note that Angstrom is not accepted anymore and should be replaced by nanometer or picometer.

If written inline denominator units should be written with negative exponents, e.g., W·m-1·K-1.

Equations that are referred to in the text must be numbered sequentially throughout the text with the number on the right-hand side (i.e., (1), (2), (3)). Punctuation after equations (comma, semicolon, full stop) should be applied as if the equations were part of the text.

Vectors and matrices should be written in bold.

It is important to distinguish between ln (= loge) and lg (= log10). Use a Roman e for an exponential e. Except for simple cases, exponential expressions, especially those containing subscripts or superscripts, are clearer if the notation exp(...) is used. Use a Roman d for a differential d (for example: tan(α) = dy/dx).

Figures and Tables

Each figure and each table must be referenced in the text. Figures should be numbered sequentially (Figure 1, Figure 2, ...), and should be cited in the text as Figure 1, Figure 2 and (Fig. 1), (Fig. 2) if in parentheses. Each figure and each table must have a caption describing it. Captions must be placed below the figure and above the table.

Authors should be aware that, as a result of the production and typesetting process, figures may be resized to fit the format of the journal. Lettering (symbols, numbers, etc.) should be of sufficient size to remain legible after reduction to fit the page size of the PDF version (letters 1.5-2 mm high after reduction to either one- or two-column format). Figures should be planned for the column width (8.8 cm) of the journal. If the details require a larger size, 1.5 or 2 columns figure width may be used. The final size of capital letters or numerals in a figure usually lies within the range 1.6-2.3 mm to avoid any disproportion between figure and text character sizes.

Figures submitted in colour are published in colour.

Statements

The Acknowledgements must give credit to colleagues and/or institutions/organisations that provided help to the autors to complete the work and the article. The authors must further acknowledge all external material used for performing the work. Providers of data and models often propose on their websites specific language for acknowledging their data or models.

This Funding statements should inform the readers of the funding sources (grant(s), project(s) numbers, other financial support) that enabled the completion of the work. If no funding has been provided, please include the statement: "This research did not receive any specific funding".

The Data Availability statement must be specific and detailed so that the reader can easily find the data. General identifications of sources such as "ESA Space Weather Service Network" or "NASA Space Physics Data Facility" are not sufficient. The data used for the work will ideally adhere to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). If no data were analysed or generated the phrase of the type: "This article has no associated data generated and/or analyzed" should be used.

References

The bibliography should serve to enable the reader to examine background information and additional documents. Only references necessary for the appreciation and understanding of the article should be cited. They must be self-contained and in principle accessible to any reader of JSWSC. Abstracts for conference presentations and the presentations themselves are not valid citations unless documented, e.g., in a proceedings collection, and publicly accessible. If a DOI or instead of a DOI another persistent identifier exists it must be provided. DOIs and similar pointers (e.g., to arXiv, ESS Open Archive, and Zenodo) facilitate retrieving bibliographic items. URLs of data and software repositories and references to personal or private communications may be specified in the body, preferentially as footnotes, but must not be included in the bibliography.

Depending on the structure of the sentence references are either cited by placing the name(s) and the year(s) in parentheses or by placing only the year(s) in parentheses. If there are two authors for one citation, both names should be given, separated by an ampersand (&). If there are more than two authors, only the first name should be given, followed by "et al.". Commas should be used to separate two or more years linked with one author or an author group with the same lead author. If two or more citations are made in one set of parentheses, they should be separated by a semi-colon. If more than one citation is made for a particular author or an author group with the same lead author for the same year, "a", "b", "c", etc. should be added to the year.

The following two examples illustrate the required style:

• Copernicus (1543), Galilei et al. (1599, 1599b), and Kepler & Galilei (1602) demonstrated ...
• ... planet orbits (Copernicus, 1543; Galilei et al., 1599a, 1599b; Kepler & Galilei, 1602).

Authors' initials are permitted only in exceptional cases, for example, to distinguish between two authors with the same surname.

Each literature citation in the body of the article must have a corresponding entry in the References at the end of the article. The References must contain only the references cited in the text, tables or figure captions, ordered alphabetically by surname (with initials following). If there are several references to the same first author, they should be entered according to the following scheme:

1. One author: chronologically
2. Author, one co-author: alphabetically by co-author, then chronologically
3. Author, two or more co-authors: chronologically.

Please note that for articles that have more than five authors, only the first five should be given, followed by "et al."

The format for references is as follows: Author Surname_1, Initials_1, Surname_2, Initals_2, ..., Surname_n, Initials_n. year. ISO 4 standard journal title in italics (e.g., J Space Weather Space Clim). volume number (boldface), paper number. DOI if available.

Examples:

Article with one author

• Tsagouri IA. 2011. Evaluation of the performance of DIAS ionospheric forecasting models. J. Space Weather Space Clim. 1, A02. https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2011110003.

Article with two to five authors

• Podladchikova T, Van der Linden R. 2011. An upper limit prediction of the peak sunspot number for solar cycle 24. J. Space Weather Space Clim., 1, A01. https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2011110013.

Article with more than 5 authors

• Navas-Portella V, Altadill D, Blanch E, Altadill M, Segarra A, et al. 2025. Estimation of the drift velocity of Equatorial Plasma Bubbles using GNSS and digisonde data. J. Space Weather Space Clim. 15, 2. https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2024038.

Books

• Baker DN. 2005. Specifying and forecasting SpaceWeather threats to human technology. In: Effects of SpaceWeather on technology infrastructure, Daglis IA (Ed.), Springer, Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 1–25. ISBN 978-1-4020-2754-3.

For more examples of references please consult papers recently published in JSWSC.

Annexes

Annexes should be used to describe complex steps, e.g., equation derivations, method details, or ancillary data that are needed for the understanding of the article but should not interrupt the flow of the article body. They should be treated as normal sections. If there are equations, figures, or tables they should be numbered separately from those in the main text as (A.1), Fig. A1, and Table A1, respectively, when in Annex A.

Supplementary material

Authors may submit multimedia attachments to enhance the online versions of published articles. Multimedia attachments typically consist of supplementary data such as data files, large tables of extra information (often in machine readable format), extra figures, computer code, video clips, and animations. They can present results in an attractive way and provide data needed to reproduce the work while not cluttering the main article with large and comprehensive data sets. For more information on the submission of this material (file requirements, etc.), please, contact the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Supplementary material will not be manipulated by the typesetter, it will be published as delivered.

Post-Acceptance procedures

Proofs

Proofs will be sent by electronic mail to the corresponding author. The aim of proofreading is to correct errors which may have occurred during the production process or were detected in the submitted material by the author or the editor after acceptance. Substantial modifications made by authors affecting the content of their paper are prohibited at this stage.

Files written with MS-Word, WordPerfect, RTF, or similar word processors need heavy retyping (equations and special characters are lost during the conversion process). Authors should keep in mind that checking and approving proofs is their responsibility. Corrections should therefore be clear. The use of standard proof correction marks is recommended. The reproduction of artwork, the layout of the pages and equation spacing introduced by the production staff should be carefully checked. The proofs, once corrected, should be returned to the publisher as soon as possible, or within five working days.

Post-publication corrections

The published version of a JSWSC article constitutes its Version-of-Record (VoR). Should an author discover a material error or inaccuracy in their own published article, they should promptly notify the Editor(s)-in-Chief and the Publisher of the journal so that appropriate action can be taken in order to correct the issue and ensure that the VoR of their JSWSC article remains exact, complete and authoritative. A thorough investigation involving the Publisher, the Editor(s)-in-Chief, the author and/or the Editorial Board may be needed, hence undertaken, in some cases when alleged ethical problems affecting JSWSC published articles are reported, and so as to assess the severity of the situation. Please note that JSWSC may also liaise with authors’ institutions in the framework of investigations and inform them of suspected misconduct should evidence supporting these concerns be established. Reciprocally JSWSC is committed to cooperate with investigations and respond to institutions’ questions about misconduct allegations. Depending on the circumstances and significance of a reported issue, the journal may have to publish a Correction, a Retraction, an Expression of Concern or even remove the article, in accordance with the COPE Post-publication guidelines.

ORCIDS

Only authenticated ORCIDs will be published in JSWSC. Any ORCID included only in the article files or provided outside of the process outlined below will not be included in the published article.

Corresponding authors can link their and their co-authors' ORCID to their profiles when entering the manuscript data. Co-authors listed this way will be automatically invited to confirm that they are co-authors of the manuscript, and to validate their ORCID. This must be done before article acceptance. See also the EDP Sciences ORCID policy.