Nature (Editor: Philip Campbell) appears weekly and publishes papers from any area of science with great potential impact. The importance of Nature papers often extends well beyond the confines of the specific discipline concerned. (Nature's "impact factor", measured by the independent organization the Institute of Scientific Information in Philadelphia, is higher than any other interdisciplinary scientific journal.) Nature also publishes a broad range of informal material in the form of Opinion articles, News stories, Briefings and Recruitment features, and contributed material such as Correspondence; Commentary; News and Views; Scientific Correspondence; book, software and product reviews; Reviews; Progress articles; etc. See guide to authors for further explanation of these categories. Material can be submitted to London or Washington. Editorial staff in Tokyo, Munich and Paris can offer advice to authors, but material should not be submitted to these offices. The monthly journals publish papers of the highest quality and exceptionally impact in the disciplines indicated by their titles, as well as informal material and reviews, as elaborated below. All are based in New York except Nature Cell Biology which is based in London.
Results are presented from an experimental programme in the atmosphere to determine water vapour absorption in the 10–12μm atmospheric window. Radiation measurements have been made with upward and downward looking multi-channel radiometers from an aircraft. Midlatitude and tropical conditions have been studied. the wavelength and temperature dependence of the absorption are presented. Possible causes of the absorption are investigated and dimers of the water molecule are concluded to be the responsible absorbing species.
