In 1980 the decision was taken to establish a new journal, the Journal of Climatology, and in 1981 the venture was implemented-with only a limited number of papers ready in advance, and few committed subscribers. In this last number of the third volume it is appropriate to review briefly the scale of the development that has taken place, and to indicate changes that are proposed in the immediate future.
After a slow start, the number of papers submitted soon increased dramatically, so that with the rejectionlacceptance ratio fluctuating little over time from 1:2 the number of good-quality papers available for publication has never posed a problem. In this context, the time, care and thought contributed by referees when unsolicited papers arrive on their desks has continued to both surprise and please me-without their contribution standards could not have been generated and maintained. Moreover, authors have invariably responded constructively to their comments, and it has been gratifying to note the number of authors who have written to express appreciation of the guidance and advice of the anonymous referees.
The papers that have been published in these first three years have come from across the world as a whole, with South America being the only continent so far not represented-this situation remains true of the papers already accepted for publication in the fourth volume in 1984. Thus, in Table I it can be seen that approximately 30 per cent of papers being published have come from the United Kingdom, and just over 25 per cent from North America. After this, there are about 10 per cent of the papers from each of the rest of Europe, Asia and Australasia, and rather less than this amount from Africa.