Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, an international journal sponsored by Institute of Atmospheric Physics and published by Springer-Nature, releases its latest issue (February 2017) on  the Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters. All the articles in the issue can be downloaded at http://link.springer.com/journal/376/34/2 .

Meteorological disasters usually exert huge impacts on the development of both human society and the economy. According to statistics from the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the annual mean economic loss caused by meteorological disasters accounts for 3%-6% of the total amount of global GDP. China is a country that has been one of the most severely influenced by natural disasters, and more than 70% of natural disasters in China are mainly caused by a variety of meteorological disasters. Meteorological disasters in China happen over an extensive area, and are usually characterized by high frequency and long duration. 

Accompanied by the global warming of the climate in recent times, the frequency of meteorological disasters has increased evidently and caused even more severe social and economic losses. For this reason, the monitoring, early warning, forecasting and risk assessment of such meteorological phenomena are in urgent demand. Developments in these areas will help mitigate and perhaps even prevent particular meteorological disasters from happening, at both national and regional levels. Such efforts are closely relevant to the state of the national economy and the protection of people's livelihoods, as well as food security, ecological services and socioeconomic sustainability.

Cover of the Special Issue on the Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (Image by Advances in Atmospheric Sciences) shows impact of surface sensible heating over the Tibetan Plateau on the western Pacific subtropical high. See the article in this issue by Duan et al.

In recent years, Chinese scientists have paid increasing amounts of attention to the key scientific issues related to meteorological disasters and, as such, have made great progress. In 2012, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology sponsored and established the Collaborative Innovation Center on the Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD) through collaboration with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics/Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Meteorological Center, National Climate Centers and other institutes. CIC-FEMD aims to resolve some of the key issues related to the mechanisms and physical processes underpinning anomalous monsoonal and major meteorological/climatic extremes, sub-seasonal and seasonal climate prediction, the monitoring and forecasting of meteorological disasters, climate change and risk assessment, as well as theories and methodologies in the climate field, through joint research.

This special issue of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (AAS) publishes some of the innovative research findings of CIC-FEMD.  The authors believe there will be even more breakthroughs in the future acquired through the efforts of CIC-FEMD and the scientific community beyond.