It is now widely accepted that human activities are inducing global climatic change. The oceans are an integral and important part of the global climate system. They store immense amounts of heat and moisture, moderating change but prolonging it once change commences. The oceans also store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, perhaps regulating greenhouse warming driven by human activity. This book examines the complex and multi-faceted interaction between the oceans and the atmosphere (and hence the climate), describing how physical, biological and chemical processes combine in the oceans to affect climatic change in the past, present and future. This comprehensive textbook introduces these multi-disciplinary controls, and will prove an ideal course-book for undergraduates studying earth and environmental sciences, oceanography, meteorology and climatology, and will also be useful for students and teachers of geography, physics, chemistry and biology.