This textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students outlines and provides links between classical mechanics and geophysical fluid dynamics. It is particularly suitable for the mechanics and fluids dynamics courses of geophysics, meteorology, or oceanography students as well as serving as a general textbook for a course on geophysical fluid dynamics.

It describes the motions of rigid bodies and shows how classical mechanics has important applications to geophysics, as in the precession of the earth, oceanic tide, and the retreat of the moon from the earth owing to the tidal friction. Unlike the more general mechanics textbooks this gives a unique presentation of these applications