Earth's Climate

Understanding the earth’s climate system has never been more crucial.

At a time when the evidence is stronger than ever that human activity is the primary cause for global climate change, Ruddiman's breakthrough text provides a thorough and multi-disciplinary introduction to the earth’s climate. It offers a clear, engaging, objective portrait of the current state of climate science, including compelling recent findings on global warming and important advances in understanding past climates.

- Bill Ruddiman is widely recognized in the science community as possessing the interdisciplinary qualifications to write an authoritative textbook on Earth.
- The text synthesizes material from many disciplines including geology, ecology, paleobotany and oceanography into a coherent, step-by-step presentation that is accessible for students.
- A coherent structure allows students to focus the major themes including the causes of climate change, the natural response times of the many components of Earth, the interactions and feedbacks among these numerous components and the role of carbon as it moves within the climate system at each time scale.
- Each chapter explores the climatic responses of Earth's major systems as they developed through Earth's history, moving from the earliest known climate history to historical, modern, and future changes providing students with a clear and chronological introduction to the topic.

New in this Edition
- Features boxes include discussions of climate feedbacks and interactions, tools and techniques used by climate scientists, and ongoing debates about the Earth helps students connect the theory with the real-world application.
- A full chapter on the earth’s climate system today provides students a valuable foundation for understanding the basic operation of the earth’s climate system.
- This edition discusses a wide range of new research throughout, including the latest on cyclic and millennial-scale changes in climate, keeping students engaged in contemporary field research.