Geoffrey K. Vallis is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Exeter. Prior to taking up his position there, he taught for many years at Princeton University, New Jersey. He has carried out research in the atmospheric sciences, oceanography and the planetary sciences, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles. He is the recipient of various prizes and awards, including the Adrian Gill Prize (Royal Meteorological Society) and the Stanislaw M. Ulam Distinguished Scholar award (Los Alamos National Laboratory). He is the author of Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics: Fundamentals and Large-Scale Circulation (2nd Edition, Cambridge, 2017).

• Part I. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics: 1. Fluid fundamentals; 2. Equations for a rotating planet; 3. Dynamics on a rotating planet; 4. Shallow water equations; 5. Geostrophic theory; 6. Rossby waves; 7. Gravity waves; 8. Instability; 9. Waves and mean-flows; 10. Turbulence; Part II. Atmospheres: 11. The Hadley cell and the tropics; 12. Midlatitudes and the stratosphere; 13. Planetary atmospheres; Part III. Oceans: 14. Wind-driven gyres; 15. The thermocline and overturning circulation; 16. The equatorial ocean and El Niño; References; Index.

'The 'big book' [Atmospheric and Oceanic Dynamics Fluid] by Vallis is a treasure, but I suspect that this new 'Essentials' is destined to be used much more widely in classrooms. Vallis does a superb job of communicating the peculiar tensions between deductive reasoning and physical intuition that underlie this science. The new book is more approachable but no less rigorous … It's almost the perfect introductory textbook on this subject, and I plan to use it in my own courses.' Brian E. J. Rose, University at Albany