This project represents climate data as music. Different facets of the climate are encoded as different musical instruments. Go ahead and turn your sound on.
Temperature is encoded in the music in a few ways. First, we have the tenor line, which takes the range of temperatures from 1918 through 2018, breaks them into five equal parts, and makes them sound like this scale.
Next, we have the basso continuo—the chords and bass note—which takes the same range of temperatures from 1918 through 2018, breaks them into five equal parts, and makes them sound like this common chord progression.
Finally, for arctic ice data—area and extent—we have two additional insturments. You will hear them come in at the end, and they break arctic ice data into seven equal parts.
John West is a technologist and writer, currently working in the R&D Lab of the Wall Street Journal. He holds a B.A. in philosophy and a Performance Degree in Historical Performance from Oberlin College and Conservatory, and he recieved his MFA in writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. He lives in Boston with his partner, daughter, and cat.
Climate Music relies on data from NASA, here and here. It uses two excellent libraries, D3 and Tone, to do what it does. It was created in 2020.