The Earth System: An Introduction to Earth Science

For accuracy of facts and clarity of expression this book by David Laing betters all other available Earth Science textbooks. Why did his book have only one printing? I used it for one term and found that it was too advanced for the scientifically illiterate students who enrol in my popular intro Earth Science. However, the other Earth Science textbooks which are available are so full of inaccuracies and muddled baby-level talk that I baulk at using them and lecture from my own notes which are given to the students as handouts. Nor can I use the TASA CD that comes with them (and was not included in Laing's book) as it opens with a scene of the earth rising (!) over a horizon as seen from a stationary point on the moon's surface. Also, in book's other than Laing's, diagrams of the earth's global wind systems include a complete Hadley cell circulation (which does not exist) and this makes any discussion of why there are subtropical jet streams impossible. The same nonsense is even continued in books as The Atmosphere, 4th edition, by F.K. Lutgens and E. J. Tarbuck even though I have often taken the time to write to the editors to have the diagrams thrown out or redrafted. Only in Laing will you find a useful depiction of atmospheric circulation that can be used to account for the subtropical and polar front jet streams. Other points great and small are too numerous to mention here. In short, Laing's book is without peer and that it saw one printing is a sad commentary on the level of science preparedness of college entrants.