Arctic Ocean Canon
Scientific data is almost always represented graphically either in figures or in videos. With the ever-growing interest from the general public towards understanding climate science, it is becoming increasingly important that we present this information in ways accessible to non-experts.
In this special Christmas piece, we use time series data from the UK Earth System model (UKESM) pre-industrial control run to create a procedurally generated piece of music, based on the chords progression and melodic structure of Pachelbel's Canon in D major. "Variations on the Kanon" by Johann Pachelbel, arranged and performed by George Winston from his album December, is one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded and has become synonymous with Christmas in the de Mora household.
The data used in this piece are all metrics of the sea ice, circulation and marine biogeochemistry of the Arctic Ocean - the very ocean and Ice beneath the Santa's workshop!
On the technical side, this is the first piece in the Earth System Music playlist where the size of the smoothing window varies throughout the piece. This means that we can control the dynamics of the piece, but having fewer notes at the start, then a gradual build, a drop and a final rush at conclusion of the piece. The dynamics were loosely inspired by George Winston's performance and the smoothing window varies with each repetition of the 8 bar canon.
Finally, Merry Christmas from everyone at Earth System Music and UKESM!
About me: I'm Dr. Lee de Mora, a marine ecosystem modeller and musician based in Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, Devon England. I've helped develop and evaluate the UKESM model, the ESMValTool model evaluation suite. I also play bass and guitar in the Plymouth based band, Glass Curtain: http://glasscurtainband.weebly.com
The sheet music for this piece is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EfHE...
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