The Oceans and Climate - Grant R. Bigg

It is now widely accepted that human activities are inducing global climatic change. The oceans are an integral and important part of the global climate system. They store immense amounts of heat and moisture, moderating change but prolonging it once change commences. The oceans also store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, perhaps regulating greenhouse warming driven by human activity. This book examines the complex and multi-faceted interaction between the oceans and the atmosphere (and hence the climate), describing how physical, biological and chemical processes combine in the oceans to affect climatic change in the past, present and future. This comprehensive textbook introduces these multi-disciplinary controls, and will prove an ideal course-book for undergraduates studying earth and environmental sciences, oceanography, meteorology and climatology, and will also be useful for students and teachers of geography, physics, chemistry and biology.

'Climate change has influenced the origin and growth of early civilisations and will continue to do so. Grant Bigg's The Oceans and Climate
introduces a multidisciplinary approach to this central problem affecting human wellbeing … The book takes us through the planetary phenomena that affect global climate … offers an excellent mathematical introduction to these complex issues, and should be read by students of oceanography, whatever their background.' David Nichols, New Scientist

'… well written and richly illustrated … The book provides a reasonably priced, lucid, and not too technical, survey of the complex system called 'climate', with emphasis on the special role played by the world's oceans, but not neglecting other pieces in a multifaceted puzzle.' Elmar R. Reiter, Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics

'… this book is an extremely valuable reference book on an immensely important subject for many scientific disciplines.' Robin Wingfield, Journal of Quaternary Science