In April 2011, a new journal will join the Nature pantheon. Nature Climate Change (http://www.nature.com/nclimate) will aim to publish papers on all aspects of climate change science, including the impacts of global warming on ecology, economy and policy. The launch will not affect the scope of Nature Geoscience; we will continue to provide a platform for research ranging from palaeoclimate and climate dynamics to carbon cycle research — or, in the language of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, all subject areas traditionally covered by Working Group I in The Physical Science Basis. Of course Nature, too, will continue unaffected, publishing on all natural science aspects of climate (and climate change) science.

Given the emphasis on climate impacts in Nature Climate Change, and its broad range of topics that fall outside the geosciences (for example, economics, sociology and psychology), we do not expect a large amount of overlap. However, Nature Climate Change will also cover climate change topics in the physical sciences that could just as well be published in Nature Geoscience or Nature. In these areas, Nature Climate Change will simply provide an additional publishing outlet.

In line with Nature Publishing Group's fundamental principles, the decision of where to submit a paper will lie entirely with the authors. A manuscript submitted to Nature Geoscience will not be transferred to Nature Climate Change (or vice versa) unless the authors explicitly request to make use of our transfer system (see http://go.nature.com/PY7jLh for details). If authors do decide to transfer their paper they will receive an independent editorial decision from the recipient journal, based on the merits of the paper and the editorial criteria of that journal.

When deciding where to submit their work, authors should consider which audience they would like to reach — Nature Geoscience's readership of physical scientists that study solid Earth, planetary and climate sciences, or the equally broad anticipated audience of Nature Climate Change of policymakers and economists, as well as ecologists and climate researchers. We are confident that, in the long run, readers and authors will have little trouble navigating the new set of choices.

In the meantime, we would like to confirm to all potential authors — in the science of climate and climate change as much as in all the other fields of the Earth sciences — that we continue to welcome their most exciting work.