LISTEN: 1,200 Years of Earth’s Climate, Transformed into Sound
https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2018/01/08/listen-1200-years-of-earths-climate-transformed-into-sound/
Source: By Danielle Venton, KQED Science
Excerpt: ...we’d like to offer a new way to understand the speed at which our planet has changed over the past few hundred years. This project was brought to us by three UC Berkeley graduate students and a sonification artist. ...You’ll hear global temperatures and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the most recent three centuries.... The music... tracks global average temperature and CO2 from 850 A.D. to 2016. ...Perhaps the pace of climate change can be better communicated through sound. “In all climate data you see it in a long chart with time that is way longer than human life time so it’s impossible to experience,” says Gordon. “But when you sonify it you actually experience time in a way that you can’t experience when you look at the chart. As you hear in the piece that Chris has composed there’s really not a lot happening for a really long time and it’s kind of soothing,” says Pennington. “We have a normal state of the world, and life has evolved relative to that normal state of the world.” The piece of sound begins with a low drone, the tone of which represents the concentration of carbon dioxide during the Middle Ages. It is accompanied by a twangy ping-pong sound: global temperature averages. Starting in the 1700s, however, you begin to hear a change. ...Approaching the 1900s, the tone becomes a higher-pitched wail. The last few seconds of the piece sound like an alarm, the result of a meteoric rise in CO2 concentrations....
Source: By Danielle Venton, KQED Science
Excerpt: ...we’d like to offer a new way to understand the speed at which our planet has changed over the past few hundred years. This project was brought to us by three UC Berkeley graduate students and a sonification artist. ...You’ll hear global temperatures and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the most recent three centuries.... The music... tracks global average temperature and CO2 from 850 A.D. to 2016. ...Perhaps the pace of climate change can be better communicated through sound. “In all climate data you see it in a long chart with time that is way longer than human life time so it’s impossible to experience,” says Gordon. “But when you sonify it you actually experience time in a way that you can’t experience when you look at the chart. As you hear in the piece that Chris has composed there’s really not a lot happening for a really long time and it’s kind of soothing,” says Pennington. “We have a normal state of the world, and life has evolved relative to that normal state of the world.” The piece of sound begins with a low drone, the tone of which represents the concentration of carbon dioxide during the Middle Ages. It is accompanied by a twangy ping-pong sound: global temperature averages. Starting in the 1700s, however, you begin to hear a change. ...Approaching the 1900s, the tone becomes a higher-pitched wail. The last few seconds of the piece sound like an alarm, the result of a meteoric rise in CO2 concentrations....