- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Laboratoire de Glaciologie, Department of Geosciences, Environment and Society, Brussels, Belgium (Frank.Pattyn@ulb.be)
Music has the creative ability to deliver information about climate change in an emotionally engaging way. There are numerous examples of converting climate change data into musical compositions. One well-known approach is the sonification of data by scaling and converting data time series to musical notes. The result may often sound dissonant (sometimes voluntary to raise awareness), and very challenging when several time series, hence musical sequences, are combined into one song. Another approach is to step away from the sonically display of climate information by interpreting the sequence artistically, hence freely.
One way to overcome the purely data-driven dissonance is to make use of harmonic scales for mapping data series to musical notes. The major advantage being that several sequences can be combined harmonically as long as they belong to the same scale. Such harmonic sequences are used as building blocks for songs, allowing for a creative approach to music based on the data series, while keeping the inner musical coherence. Besides data sonification, direct sound sampling (e.g., Pettit et al, 2015) or other types of measurements may also be the basis of music creation. We found that raw phase-sensitive radar returns (ApRES) produce a (noisy) signal within the audible range (0.1 - 10 kHz) and that different parts of the ice sheet produce distinct sound patterns depending on the radar return. While they cannot be directly mapped via sonification, we may use them as a rhythmic component.
Using both harmonic sonification of mass balance time series and radar pulse returns from the Antarctic ice sheet, we created electronic-based music. All songs have data-driven cryosphere change components through bass lines, arpeggiators and rhythmic patterns, and are further creatively harmonized. All sonification code is available through a toolbox.
References:
Pettit, E. C., K. M. Lee, J. P. Brann, J. A. Nystuen, P. S. Wilson, and S. O'Neel (2015), Unusually loud ambient noise in tidewater glacier fjords: A signal of ice melt. Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 2309–2316. doi: 10.1002/2014GL062950.
(*) The author is besides being a glaciologist and ice sheet modeller, amateur jazz piano, keyboard, bass player and composer.
How to cite: Pattyn, F.: The sound of ice: using radar data and sonification in music composition, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10270, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10270, 2025.
