1. Introduction to Python for Earth and Environmental Sciences#

In this first chapter, which you may skip if you are an experienced Python programmer, we will guide you through the basics of Python that will allow you to sail through the rest of the book. This includes the basics of variables, control flow, file I/O, data structure, functions, and classes in Python. We then introduce cornerstone Python libraries:

  • Numpy for scientific computing,

  • Matplotlib and Cartopy for visualization,

  • Pandas for tabular data analysis,

  • Geopandas for geospatial data analysis,

  • Scikit-learn for statistical modeling, and

  • Seaborn for statistical graphics.