Environmental processes first, with deeper sensing and orbital material available when you want it.
Textbook Part
This part uses the mathematical habits from Part 1 to understand environmental systems: energy, soils, plants, water, and atmosphere. It leads with the most concrete process models and keeps the orbital and GPS geometry as extension material for a second pass.
Part 2 is easier to read when the chapters feel like one physical build rather than a pile of environmental topics. The route starts with surface energy, moves through soils and plants, then brings in atmosphere, observation, and finally the coupled land-atmosphere system.
Learn radiation, evapotranspiration, and soil heat as the bookkeeping backbone of environmental change.
Track soil moisture, plant function, and seasonal or biogeochemical consequences.
Use wind, vertical structure, and sensing chapters to connect process models to what can actually be measured.
Land-atmosphere coupling ties water, energy, vegetation, and heat extremes into one system.
These are second-pass depth chapters once you want more orbital and positioning detail than the main environmental route requires.
Use these after the core path when you want a fuller biogeochemical and seasonal-systems pass through Part 2.
This chapter ties the part together by showing how water balance, evaporative cooling, vegetation stress, and atmospheric demand reinforce or damp one another.