Global Climate Change Depicted By Cello

University of Minnesota undergrad Daniel Crawford communicates the latest climate science through music in this haunting video. Using surface temperature data from NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, Crawford created a musical composition with each note representing a year—ordered from 1880 to 2012—and with low pitches representing cool years and high notes marking hotter ones. As the score gets closer to the present the notes continue to build higher, illustrating the recent spate of hot years. The video ends on a frightening note: “Scientists predict the planet will warm by another 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. This additional warming would produce a series of notes beyond the range of human hearing.”