Peer Review
It's completely voluntary, there is no extra pay and no extra time built into their schedule to devote to the responsibility. They do it to give something back to the meteorological science community. They do it to influence the quality of the scientific publications. They do it as a labor of love for their profession. And they see, all together, thousands of papers and shepherd them through the rigorous process of peer review.
One of the primary ways scientists share their ideas and knowledge with each other is through scientific journals, and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) publishes ten. NSSL has a history of supporting AMS journals through participation of its scientists as reviewers, associate editors, regular editors and chief editors. Currently, three scientists at NSSL are chief editors: Dave Jorgensen is co-chief editor of "Monthly Weather Review," and Harold Brooks and Dave Stensrud are co-chief editors of "Weather and Forecasting." Dave Schultz is an editor of "Monthly Weather Review," and there are a number of associate editors as well: Mike Baldwin, Jack Kain, and Lou Wicker for "Monthly Weather Review," Kim Elmore for "Weather and Forecasting," and Alexander Rhyzkov for the "Journal of Applied Meteorology."
"Peer review is one of the foundations of the scientific enterprise," says Dave Stensrud. "An editor is a person who has a good amount of experience in the scientific publishing process (both as author and reviewer), and who knows a lot of people in the scientific community." "Editing's a great opportunity to see the rest of the publication process," adds Harold Brooks, "as an author and reviewer, you only see part of it." A result of this broader view is that editors are working to "improve the time from submission to publication," according to Dave Schultz. Dave Jorgensen is on the AMS committee to reinvent the publications process to become totally paperless. He says, "From manuscript submission to reviews, to copy and technical editing and layout, through galleys, everything (except for the transfer of copyright form) will be done electronically." He hopes this will drastically reduce the cost of publishing color figures and get the page charges down to acceptable levels as well as decrease the time between submission and publication. Dave and his MWR editors and associate editors have already made great strides in decreasing the time from manuscript submission to initial decision in the "Monthly Weather Review." His goal is to shorten the time needed to make an initial editorial decision to about 5-6 weeks and the time from acceptance to publication to less than 20 weeks.
It's their reputation
that gets them into this. Jorgensen says, "Reputations are made by publishing
papers and getting to know folks. Reputations are also enhanced by being a
good reviewer, which means not turning down too many offers to review papers
and returning the review in a timely fashion." Jorgensen concludes, "There
are plenty of talented folks willing to unselfishly contribute their time to
this endeavor, which makes science work in this country."
