Climate Change Data, Translated Into Music
Earth’s climate is changing around us. From the frequent wildfires in California to the increasingly severe cyclones in the Indian Ocean, evidence of human-caused global warming is becoming clear.
But even as polls indicate a growing acceptance of the reality of global warming, many people are still not motivated to act; it feels too abstract, more likely to affect others. Lately, to convey the urgency of climate change at a personal level, scientists have begun translating its dry data points into heart-rending melodies.
“Music is really visceral,” said Stephan Crawford, founder of The ClimateMusic Project, a San Francisco-based group that creates music based on climate data. “Listening to a composition is an active experience, not just a passive one. It can make climate change feel more personal and inspire people to take action.”
On October 29, a composition by The ClimateMusic Project — a jazz and spoken-word piece called “What If We…?” — was performed by the band COPUS in front of an audience of about 250 people at the World Bank headquarters in Washington.
To create it, Wendy Loomis, the composer for ClimateMusic, and Alison Marklein, an environmental researcher at the University of California, Riverside, began with data on sea-level rise. A computer algorithm then converted each foot, or 30.5 centimeters, of potential sea-level rise into an audio frequency, each slightly higher than the last. The result was the aural equivalent of a graph.
The composition begins with audio representing the current-day sea level. As it progresses, it tracks the data into the future. The music becomes increasingly distorted, and a battle ensues between the bass (representing diminishing land area) and the drums (rising sea level) that is jarring.
Spoken over the composition are fictional headlines from the future, envisaging how rising seas may affect the globe, such as “The Arctic Ocean is ice free for the first time.”
The group, founded in 2014, has now performed musical interpretations of climate data at nearly two dozen concerts, mostly in California, as well as in Mexico, France, Germany and Italy.
Other scientists are turning to music. In 2013, Scott St. George, a professor of geography at the University of Minnesota, collaborated with the music student Daniel Crawford to turn 133 years of global temperature measurements into a melody for the cello. In 2015, they wrote a piece for a string quartet.
“When I teach my classes and I put up the latest temperature plots,” Dr. St. George said, “I don’t get that kind of reaction from my students. Graphics just don’t land with the same impact.”
To motivate listeners, climate composers tend to include “best case” scenarios in their works. In “What If We…?” the music shifts halfway into the piece, from increasing gloom to a softer sound, representing what the world might be like if people implement changes.
Mr. Crawford said, “Climate change is an urgent issue because we can still do something about it.”