Provides and outstanding level of content to help students understand the climate as a true connection of processes occurring in the earth-ocean-atmosphere system.  For example, a great amount of detail is included on ocean circulation (Chapter 4), surface/atmosphere interactions (Chapter 5), and the hydrosphere (Chapter 6).

The authors provide extensive detail on the micro-scale processes involved in climate.  Details of energy, matter, and momentum exchanges are provided as an optional area of coverage.

Introduces the use of eigenvector analysis in climatological problem-solving in a way that is appropriate for students at this level.  Often times students encounter these techniques in research manuscripts and journal articles but they do not have a full understanding of how the techniques work.

Chapters on regional climates provide numerous specific examples using climographs.

Review Questions and Questions for Thought, featured at the end of each chapter, included insightful questions that may be used as extra credit assignments, points for classroom debate, and topics for research projects.

A flexible organization allows instructors to pick and choose which chapters to cover without fear of missing out on critical concepts.