Climate of the Past (CP) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications, and review papers on the climate history of the Earth. CP covers all temporal scales of climate change and variability, from geological time through to multidecadal studies of the last century. Studies focusing mainly on present and future climate are not within scope.
The main subject areas are the following:
Climate of the Past has an innovative two-stage publication process which involves a scientific discussion forum and exploits the full potential of the Internet to do the following:
In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access review by one of the editors are immediately published on the Climate of the Past Discussions (CPD) website. They are then subject to interactive public discussion, during which the referees' comments (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed), and the authors' replies are also published in CPD. In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in CP. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussion, CPD and CP are both ISSN-registered, permanently archived, and fully citable.