Audio: The Sound of Climate Change
Since 2011, ecologist Lauren Oakes has studied the dying yellow cedar in the Alexander Archipelago — a 300-mile long group of islands off the southeastern coast of Alaska.
In the summers of 2011 and 2012, her field crew sampled forest stands across the region, recording forest composition, species populations, and tree sizes from the north to the south, where, because of climate change, the yellow cedar's decline is most advanced. Now, with the help of a Stanford colleague, they've turned the findings into a song.
Environmental neuroeconomist Nik Sawe has been experimenting with data sonification — the representation of information by sound. The practice helps communicate complicated datasets, he told The Atlantic, revealing subtle patterns since our ears are especially sensitive to patterns.
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