The Earth System

I utilized this text first in an introductory climate science course; it was fabulous, accessible, detailed, and meshed well with everything my professor was lecturing about. Furthermore, in the many years since I first began such learning, I've returned to this text time and time again to refer its clear, easy to find charts, illustrations and definitions. I've used it for probably three or four different courses, even though it was only one professor who asked me to buy it.

I read this book outside of a class context. I am not well-versed in chemistry or geology (both are very important in earth science), but I was able to understand a majority of The Earth System. The book is lucidly written and provides a fine analysis of the dynamics of both small and large-scale planetary change. I bought and read The Earth System with the goal of understanding the science behind global warming: little did I know what a tall order that was! Global climate is enormously complex and contains far more variables than the layman would imagine. Scientists do not and probably will not understand global warming in the same way that they understand less complex phenomena. The climate system is Chaotic. The best we can do is understand the causal relations that exist within it, plug observed data into computers, and hope that the predictions based on computer modeling will be accurate. Current modeling technology will predict today's climate by running simulations on what we know of conditions on Earth 150 years ago. The agreement between a variety of simulations that predict future climate based on current conditions is the basis of the scientific consensus that global warming will occur.

I'm a prof at a small liberal arts college, and I love using this text in my upper level course on global change. It works well with non-science majors, as well as with the more advanced science students. It does a superb job with climate change science, which is one of the major focii in my course. It doesn't hesitate to use real physics, math, and chemistry, yet at the same time is accessible to the non-science folks. Lee Kump is one of the premiere geoscientists in the field, and he has lent his broad understanding to this excellent text. It might also be fun to simply read the book if you are not a student.

Kump has worked with James Lovelock of 'Gaia' fame on modelling Daisyworld. I'll let the reviewer discover what that means in this title.(But also see REVENGE OF GAIA, 2006, for Lovelock's predictions for our heating planet). This is the best book for geoscientists and geographers in training who have an interest in climate past, present, and future. An excellent college level scientific supplement to popular works on climate change and earth systems science.

Earth System Science is a new field, one that evolves much more quickly than textbooks can be revised. This one is as current as you can expect, and it approaches the field of science in a much better way than any other textbook I have seen. In particular, most earth system texts approach the field by morphing from a traditional discipline. Usually, it's a geology textbook revised to include atmospheric, oceanic, and climatic studies. But earth system science requires an interdisciplinary approach from the start, a problem based approach. Our global environmental problems need this approach, and this book covers them in a reasonably detailed and accurate manner.