SONIFICATION SHOWCASE
Quick Look

Here we have used STRAUSS to add sound to the famous "warming stripes" visualisation of temperature data (https://showyourstripes.info/). We are seeing and hearing how the surface temperature of the Earth has evolved from 1930 to 2018.  There is one click per year of the data and the sound pans from left to right (stereo) from the first to the last year. 

At each year the temperature anomaly data is used to control the intensity and pitch of a synthesised sound. The pitch and volume are controlled by the data, with increasing pitch and volume for increasing temperature. There is also a filter-cut off applied, so you only hear a limited range of frequencies at once, below come cut-off frequency. This cut-off frequency is increased with increasing temperature, resulting in richer sound. The overall effect is a louder, richer and higher pitch sound with increasing temperature - with the sounds directly controlled by the data. 

There data is from the Met Office, using the annual global temperature anomaly data taken (ensemble medians) from: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/download.html 

Thanks to Vecteezy.com for the ocean video background and Ed Hawkins for the inspiration of the climate stripes.

We have also produced an in-depth explanation of how this was put together: check out the in-depth Warming Stripes page.