---
name: global-biogeochemical-cycles
description: Use when targeting Global Biogeochemical Cycles (GBC) or deciding whether a biogeochemical-cycling manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's system-scale fluxes/budgets/feedbacks fit, the quantitative biogeochemistry evidence bar, AGU FAIR data-deposition expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics.
---

# Global Biogeochemical Cycles (global-biogeochemical-cycles)

## Journal positioning

Global Biogeochemical Cycles (GBC) is the American Geophysical Union's journal for the
**cycling of carbon, nutrients, and elements through the earth system**: the fluxes,
budgets, and feedbacks that move and transform elements across land, ocean, and atmosphere,
constrained by observations, experiments, and models. The defining expectation is a
**quantitative, system-scale advance in biogeochemistry** — a better-constrained flux or
budget, a newly characterized feedback, or a mechanism operating at regional-to-global scale
— not a site-level process measurement of interest mainly to one community. A descriptive
local incubation, a single-station time series, or an ecological/soil study with no
implication for an element budget or earth-system feedback is a weak fit. This skill is a
**fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current
author guidance. Before submitting, re-check the live GBC / AGU author instructions and data
policy.

## When to trigger

- The author names GBC and wants a fit/framing check for a biogeochemical-cycling,
  flux/budget, or feedback paper.
- A local flux measurement or experiment must be re-framed into a system-scale budget,
  feedback, or generalizable biogeochemical mechanism.
- The author is choosing between GBC, `soil-biology-and-biochemistry` (soil-process
  mechanism), and `water-resources-research` (water science).
- The author needs GBC's quantitative system-scale bar and AGU FAIR data-deposition
  expectations.

## Scope & topic fit

- Carbon cycle: land and ocean carbon uptake, storage, and exchange; atmospheric CO2/CH4
  budgets and their drivers.
- Nutrient and element cycles: nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, silicon, sulfur, and trace
  elements, and their coupling to carbon.
- Land–atmosphere and ocean–atmosphere biogeochemical exchange, including greenhouse-gas and
  reactive-gas fluxes.
- Marine biogeochemistry: productivity, export, remineralization, and ocean
  biogeochemical–physical coupling.
- Terrestrial biogeochemistry: soils, vegetation, wetlands, and disturbance effects on
  element budgets at landscape-to-global scale.
- Biogeochemical feedbacks with climate and the human perturbation of global element cycles,
  from data and earth-system/biogeochemical models.

## Method & evidence bar

- The contribution must be **quantitative and system-scale**: a flux, budget, or feedback
  that generalizes beyond one site or sample.
- Budgets and fluxes require explicit uncertainty, closure assessment where applicable, and
  reconciliation of bottom-up and top-down constraints when both exist.
- Models must be evaluated against observations with skill metrics and benchmarks; parameter
  and structural uncertainty should be addressed, not ignored.
- Observational and experimental work needs defensible scaling from measurement to system
  level, with error propagation through the scaling.
- Mechanistic and feedback claims need evidence linking the proposed process to the budget
  or signal, not correlation alone.
- Data and code underpinning fluxes, budgets, and model results should be deposited in a
  FAIR community repository with a DOI per AGU policy.

## Structure & house style

- AGU article format; GBC publishes research articles and commentaries — re-check current
  article types and length expectations on the live guide.
- The introduction must state the biogeochemical-cycling gap and the system-scale
  contribution, not just describe a site or dataset.
- A key-points summary is part of the AGU format; figures should be quantitative and
  load-bearing (flux/budget diagrams, maps with uncertainty, model–data comparisons).
- Methods and a data/software-availability statement must let a reader reproduce the central
  budget or flux estimate; AGU expects open data/code with persistent identifiers.
- Reported quantities should use established biogeochemical units and conventions so budgets
  are comparable across studies.

## Official-submission checklist

- Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and
  `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the AGU anchors, then cite the current
  GBC page you checked.
- Search the live site for "Global Biogeochemical Cycles author guidelines" and follow the
  current AGU/Wiley version.
- Re-check article types, key-points and abstract format, and length/figure expectations.
- Confirm the **AGU data and software availability policy**: deposit data/code in an
  approved FAIR repository and cite it with a DOI.
- Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and
  open-access terms.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions
  win.

## Pre-submission self-check

- [ ] The contribution is a system-scale flux/budget/feedback, not a single-site measurement.
- [ ] Budgets and fluxes report explicit uncertainty and closure/reconciliation where applicable.
- [ ] Models are benchmarked against observations with skill metrics and uncertainty treatment.
- [ ] Scaling from measurement to system level propagates error defensibly.
- [ ] Mechanistic/feedback claims are linked to the budget by evidence, not correlation alone.
- [ ] Data and code are deposited in a FAIR repository with persistent identifiers.

## Common desk-reject triggers

- A site-level flux measurement or incubation with no system-scale budget or feedback implication.
- Budgets or fluxes reported without uncertainty, closure, or top-down/bottom-up reconciliation.
- Model results presented without observational benchmarking or any uncertainty treatment.
- Scaling claims that ignore error propagation from measurement to global estimate.
- Missing or non-compliant data/code deposition where AGU policy requires it.
- Scope mismatch: a soil-microbial mechanism paper or an ecology paper with no element-cycle payoff.

## Re-routing decision

- Soil-process mechanism (microbial, enzymatic, organic-matter) is the core → `soil-biology-and-biochemistry`.
- Water-cycle or water-resources science dominant → `water-resources-research` / `journal-of-hydrology`.
- Ecosystem/global-change biology framing dominant → `global-change-biology`.
- Climate-dynamics or carbon–climate budget framing dominant → `journal-of-climate`.
- A documented biogeochemical dataset is the product rather than the interpretation → `earth-system-science-data`.

## Output format

```text
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Global Biogeochemical Cycles
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest biogeochemical-cycling topics>
[System-scale contribution] <the flux/budget/feedback advance beyond one site>
[Method/evidence] <do uncertainty + scaling + model/data evaluation + deposition clear GBC's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / key points / AGU data-software policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
```