地球大氣與海洋、生物圈、地表過程有密切的交互作用，因此形成複雜且動態的氣候系統，本課程利用物理定律解釋地球氣候系統的特徵與變化，而非傳統自然地理領域中將氣候當成長期穩定的背景場來看待，因此著重在思考、理解及進行邏輯推理。課程內容會盡量避免使用太多公式，但仍然會有。主要內容包含氣候基本定義（包含基礎統計，需寫程式分析氣候資料）、全球能量平衡（但不涉及詳細的輻射傳遞方程及參數化）、水循環、大氣的大尺度環流、海洋環流與氣候的關係等。
The Earth climate system is a complex and dynamical system which is composed by the atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, and land processes. There are close interactions between these components. In this course, we describe the characteristics and variations of Earth climate system using physics, unlike the traditional view of geographers who usually treat climate as a stable mean state. We emphasize on thinking and understanding the climate system using limited mathematics and being able to explain the climate logically. The contents include basic definition of climate (including statistics), global energy balance (not include radiative transfer function and parameterization), hydrologic cycle, atmospheric and oceanic general circulations.