It is difficult to imagine a natural system more complicated than the climate system. With its extraterrestrial forcing, as well as various terrestrial components in the atmosphere, the cryosphere, the biosphere, the solid Earth, the ocean, and countless feedbacks among them, the climate system almost defies description. Who among us could master all those subjects? Understanding, mitigating, and preparing for climate change is one of the great challenges facing humanity this century, but how can we present all the issues and uncertainties to the general public? One approach is to write an authoritative text directed at students at the undergraduate level.

Keigwin, L.D. 2004. Review of The Oceans and Climate, Second Edition, by G. Bigg. Oceanography 17(3):82–83, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2004.37.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.