Scientist Made 6-Minute Music From 30 Years of Polar Climate Data And It's a Chilling Reflection of Worsening Climate Crisis

At times, it seems as though the world has turned a blind eye to the alarming climate crisis in the 21st century. If not for a strong reminder, people may forget about the dire impacts of global warming. But Japanese geoenvironmental scientist, Hiroto Nagai had the brilliant idea to leverage the power of music to raise awareness about climate change by converting 30 years of polar climate data to compose a song that turned out sounding ominous, as per a report by Live Science. The 6-minute music piece, played by a string quartet, reflects the drasticity of the ongoing climate crisis.

A musical representation of the climate crisis

Nagai is a scientist and an associate professor at Rishho University in Tokyo. The chamber music composition, titled Polar Energy Budget, was based on his accumulated data and performed on February 26, 2023. The scientist collected and dissected publicly accessible data about the climate changes occurring in the North and South Poles to chart a music sheet. According to the study published in Cell Press, he focused on the Arctic and Antarctic and dug through climate data from three decades ago, including solar radiation, surface temperature, precipitation, and cloud thickness, by collaborating with four weather stations in the polar regions. 

This was done to gather an idea about the energy budget of Earth’s poles. Essentially, it is the balance between the energy incoming from the sun and the energy that is reflected into space from Earth. Nagai emphasizes the importance of energy budgets and how they impact global warming in his research. However, he revealed in a study that documents his musical work that his motive was to instigate concern and raise awareness about the spiraling issue. "One of the main insights from the participants is that music, unlike usual graphical representations of scientific data, evokes [an] emotional impression first," the associate professor wrote in the study that was published online in April 2024. The end result sounded daunting enough to mirror the ongoing climate collapse. 

Hiroto Nagai's intervention in converting data to music

The Tokyo-based scientist utilized appropriate software technology to transform years of graphical data into sheet music by segmenting them into sections labeled A to I. Then, through the process of sonification, the curves of the graphs were imitated into the shapes of the musical notes. To polish it, Nagai did not hesitate to add stylistic changes and snip repetitive sequences to comply with conventional musical dynamics. 

Therefore, he supported making intentional edits to the original data to make the composition more appealing in his study. "While the information from the original data is preserved as much as possible, composed musical pieces often contain a monotonous progression and lack any significant dynamics,” Nagai wrote hinting at previous efforts by scientists. Hence, his composition, Polar Energy Budget, comprises data-originated notes and stylistic additions. It was played by a string quartet including two violins, a viola, and a cello. The geoenvironmental scientists converted scientific data into art mainly to have an emotional impact on people’s hearts and emphasize the deteriorating climactic conditions.