What does climate change sound like?
Using music to convey climate science, University of Minnesota undergrad, Daniel Crawford creates a haunting message with the rising notes of his cello. Crawford based “A Song of Our Warming Planet” on a set of climate data from NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Each note represents a year — low notes for cool years, high notes for warm ones.
“Climate scientists have a standard toolbox to communicate their data…We’re trying to add another tool to that toolbox, another way to communicate these ideas to people who might get more out of music than maps, graphs and numbers.” ~ cellist, Daniel Crawford
Sadly, the escalating pitch of the cello, with its distinctive deep rich sound, produces a sound like a human voice, sending a stark message:
“Scientists predict the planet will warm by another 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. This additional warming would produce a series of notes beyond the range of human hearing.”