the sound of earth's fever by dargan

This song was made with NASA global temperature data from 1880-2016. Lower notes mean lower temperature, and higher notes are higher temperature. We chose notes from a musical scale and added drums just for effect.

We pause in 1977, a critical year for climate. Scientists were confident at this point that heat-trapping gases from fossil fuels were the main way humans were influencing the climate. Even Exxon scientists knew about global warming from fossil fuels and reported to their management in 1977!
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming

The last 40 years have seen a dramatic increase in temperature of the planet. It's important to realize that the scientific knowledge expecting a large temperature rise over future decades was there largely before it was observed. Predictions from the 1970s and 1980s of future record heat (even by Exxon scientists!) have largely come true.

Sonification by Judy Twedt and Dargan Frierson

Check out the video we made to accompany the track here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4JKt4RvZG8

and a UW press release written by Hannah Hickey here:
http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/01/18/listen-to-the-earth-smash-another-global-temperature-record/