Journal Editors' Awards

International Journal of Climatology Editors' Award
Quarterly Journal Editors' Award
Quarterly Journal Prize Reviewer's Certificate
Atmospheric Science Letters Editors' Award
Geoscience Data Journal Editors' Award
Meteorological Applications Editors' Award

2021 Awards & Prizes

International Journal of Climatology Editors' Award

Dr Radan Huth, FRMetS

Dr Radan Huth

Dr Radan Huth took over as Editor in Chief for the International Journal of Climatology (IJOC) in 2013 and stayed in position until April 2021. During this time he has made a significant and outstanding contribution to the growth and truly international reputation of the journal, growing the journals impact factor to a very respectable 4.069, placing it in the top third of all ranked journals in the Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences category.

In both 2019 and 2020, he triaged over 1,000 submissions coming into the journal, as well as handling about 10% of these as an Associate Editor.

The Royal Meteorological Society, Wiley and the journal Editorial Board would like to recognise Radan for his commitment, time and dedication to IJOC over the years, as well as his contribution to the Royal Meteorological Society’s journal portfolio as a whole.

Acceptance message

International Journal of Climatology has always been a journal closest to my research interests; it has always been a kind of “my journal”. My first publication appeared there almost thirty years ago, my first review for it requested by the then editor, Brian Giles, was written only a few months later. I even had a personal subscription to IJC in olden days when journals were really printed on paper. This journal made me proud and honoured three times. First, when I received the International Journal of Climatology prize in 2004. Second, when I was appointed as its Editor-in-Chief. And for the third time now, when I am awarded the IJC prize again. It was great pleasure and unforgettable experience (and many times also hard and extensive work) to have the opportunity to serve as chief editor for IJC, the largest of all journals in the Royal Society’s portfolio, for more than eight years. It was enjoyable to be in contact with so many authors and reviewers from around the world, and particularly so, with many nice people from Royal Society’s Headquarters and from Wiley, the journal’s publisher. I hope I have handed over “my” journal to my successors in at least as good condition as I took it from Glenn McGregor, my predecessor. I wish the new editorial team, headed by Enric Aguilar and Bill Collins, much success in further developments of the International Journal of Climatology and strengthening its reputation as a favourite journal of the fast growing climatological community.

Geoscience Data Journal Editors' Award

Claudia Di Napoli et al

Claudia Di Napoli, Christopher Barnard, Christel Prudhomme, Hannah L. Cloke, and Florian Pappenberger are awarded jointly for their paper “ERA5-HEAT: A global gridded historical dataset of human thermal comfort indices from climate reanalysis” which was published in the Geoscience Data Journal in July 2020. ERA5-HEAT (Human thErmAl comforT), is the first and only existing global historical gridded time series dataset of mean radiant temperature (MRT) and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) as spatially gridded records at the global scale. ERA5-HEAT open source data set that is free to download and is aimed at a wide range of end users, from scientists to policymakers, with an interest in environment–health applications at any spatial and temporal scale.

GDJ Editors award 2021 winners

Acceptance message

We are delighted and honoured to accept the Geoscience Data Journal Editor's Award for our paper describing the processing, dissemination, and potential applications of ERA5-HEAT reanalysis. Research at the interface between climate and health sciences has traditionally relied on weather station records, thus suffering from limits in temporal and spatial coverage as well as data accessibility. As an open-access, globe-wide dataset, ERA5-HEAT overcomes these limitations and puts at disposal terabytes of data from 1979 to almost real time, allowing new research paths to be explored. For instance, ERA5-HEAT has help shed light on the linkages between heat stress and human mortality in Europe, pedestrians’ thermal comfort in Brazil and bikeshare use across multiple locations in the world! We are really pleased that the Geoscience Data Journal has provided the ideal platform for sharing our work and making it discovered.

Meteorological Applications Editors' Award

Dr Rebecca Emerton

Rebecca Emerton

Dr Emerton is one of our most active Associate Editors. She has overseen numerous manuscripts which have required extra guidance to ensure that the revisions were completed to satisfy a tough review process. In addition to fulfilling all of the Associate Editor duties, what Dr Emerton brings to the Editorial Board is her imagination of what Meteorological Applications (Met Apps) should and could be. In particular, her ideas relating to accessibility of content, fairness in review and inclusivity. In the last year, she suggested that we encourage the use of colour maps in graphics that are useful to colour-blind readers. This led to the addition of a “Use of Colour” guide in the journal’s author guidelines. Dr Emerton catches out reviews that are unsatisfactory, in one case a disrespectful review that we dealt with as a team. She supports the journal’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity initiatives like our double blind review pilot scheme. She caught out problems when we started this pilot which has helped make the process more robust and ensured that the new double blind review process was properly established. Finally, she is willing to take on extra reviewers who are Early Career Researchers and just beginning to review papers. This creates more work for her in the short-term, but meets a long-term goal of training and growing a reviewer pool of experts who may be future reviewers for Met Apps.

Acceptance message

I am delighted and honoured to receive the Meteorological Applications Editor’s Award for 2021. Since joining the Met Apps Editorial Board in 2019 as an Associate Editor, I have enjoyed reading the work of authors from around the world on a range of different topics, and supporting them through the review process. I have learnt a lot from the papers and the reviews! It is fantastic to have the opportunity to discuss the peer review process, scientific publishing and the vision for Met Apps with the Editorial Board and editorial staff. I am pleased to be able to contribute to the positive changes and initiatives of the journal, and am very grateful for the support and guidance of our wonderful Editors in Chief, Cristina Charlton-Perez and Dino Zardi, and to all the reviewers who dedicate their time to provide insightful and helpful reviews for the authors who share their research and work through Met Apps.

Quarterly Journal Editors' Award

Professor Nedjeljka Žagar

Professor Nedjeljka Zagar has been an Associate Editor for the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (QJ) since 2013. She has been an extremely effective member of the Editorial Board, expertly handling many papers, particularly in the important areas of data assimilation and tropical wave dynamics where the journal has a high reputation. She has been a great proponent of the journal, encouraging submissions and co-leading the current special issue on the impact of wind observations from the new Aeolus satellite on numerical weather prediction. Nedjeljka has also been an active author, regularly publishing her own work in the journal. The journal Editors would like to nominate her for the QJ editor award in recognition of her all-round contributions to the journal.

Acceptance message

I am very honoured by the Quarterly Journal Editor’s Award for 2021. The Quarterly Journal is the journal where I published my PhD thesis and several follow-on papers before becoming an associate editor, which I considered one of the highlights of my career. This award makes me extra proud of my long relationship with this great meteorological journal. Big thanks go to all the colleagues reviewers, to editors who nominated me and to the Royal Meteorological Society for recognising my contribution to the journal.

Quarterly Journal Prize Reviewer's Certificate

Dr Sergey Frolov

Professor Nedjeljka Žagar

Dr Sergey Frolov receives this award in recognition of his important contribution as reviewer for the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (QJ). Sergey has taken on a high number of reviews in the area of data assimilation, especially coupled assimilation and ensemble systems, where the QJ has many submissions and demand for expert reviewers. His reviews have been thorough and their high quality was recognised by our Associate Editors at QJ. We are pleased to have this opportunity to show our appreciation for his valued contribution in maintaining the high quality of papers in QJ.

Acceptance message

I would like to thank the Royal Meteorological Society and the editors of the Quarterly Journal for their recognition. Over the years, I found reviewing the work of my peers to be an intellectual adventure. In my reviews, I strive to give feedback that helps authors to produce their best work. Learning the art of reviewing is a slow process of trial and error. For that reason, I am very grateful to receive this award as an endorsement of the balance that I found between maintaining a high quality of the publication standard and encouraging authors to publish their best most daring research.

Quarterly Journal Prize Reviewer's Certificate

Dr Lina Boljka

Dr Lina Boljka receives this award in recognition of her valuable contribution as reviewer for the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (QJ). Lina was recognised by the Associate Editors for the high quality of her reviews and for taking on a review on a challenging topic in atmospheric dynamics which required a substantial investment of time by the reviewer to read the material thoroughly and formulate an insightful review. We are pleased to have this opportunity to show our appreciation for her valued contribution in maintaining the high quality of papers in QJ.

Acceptance message

I am very grateful and honoured to have been awarded the Quarterly Journal Prize Reviewer’s Certificate for 2021. This gives me further encouragement to continue providing quality reviews. I generally find the peer review process an important aspect of our research, as it helps ensuring that the manuscripts are clear, novel, and of high quality. Personally, I also enjoy reviewing manuscripts as I can learn about new research in the field, new tools, etc., and at the same time I hopefully help the authors improve their manuscripts. Again, I really appreciate the award and look forward to reviewing for the Quarterly Journal again in the future.

Atmospheric Science Letters Editors' Award

Dr Ana Paula M. A. Cunha

Dr Lina Boljka

Ana Paula M. A. Cunha receives the Atmospheric Science Letters (ASL) Editor's award in recognition for her paper "Changes in the spatial–temporal patterns of droughts in the Brazilian Northeast" (https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asl.855). The paper was the top cited article in ASL in 2020, with 21 citations, and now has over 45 citations (at time of writing). The topic Ana Paula M. A. Cunha's paper deals with is very urgent, the evolution of droughts in Brazil in previous decades and the need to analyse them at a high resolution to detect the impact of local effects which can play a major role in the amplification of drought events. This interesting and highly applicable paper has contributed significantly to the increase in Impact Factor (IF) of ASL over the past years for which the Editors are thankful. ASL does not receive many manuscripts relating to South America and the Editors are grateful to the authors for submitting to ASL, and it is hoped that more manuscripts focusing on this area and topic will be submitted in future.

Acceptance message I am honored to be awarded by the renowned Royal Meteorological Society. This is undoubtedly a renewal of my motivation to continue producing science for my country, especially when Science has been recognized as the main path to the sustainable development of a nation.