Text from TakePart.com’s introduction to video of University of Minnesota undergrad, Daniel Crawford’s, “Song of Our Warming Planet”:
According to Ensia, the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment magazine, Crawford used surface-temperature data from NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies to create a data sonification that transforms climate records into musical notes.
In Crawford’s resulting “Song of Our Warming Planet,” each ascending halftone represents about 0.03°C of planetary warming. Each note represents a year from 1880 to 2012, and the notes are portrayed over a range of three octaves. The coldest year, 1909, is embodied by the lowest possible note on the cello, open C.
