Climate Change can be an incredibly difficult idea to conceptualize, especially in the Midwest as the early and dramatic effects have mostly spared our environment and communities. Timothy is passionate about finding new and unique ways to present, highlight, and engage with the science, researching the scope of the problem and possible solutions.
Aspects of the Thaw is a presentation of a small portion of this data through an artistic lens. Throughout this composition, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) parts per million and Methane (CH4) parts per billion data can be found as the primary musical building blocks of sound and structure. Informing sequences of notes, interval vectors, and rhythmic structures, the data creates light and dense clouds of sound or sharp melodic contours.
This piece also includes Ice Core CO2 samples from a data set ranging back 800,000 years in juxtaposition with the modern atmospheric data. By isolating around 10,000 years scaled in time and register, this historical data is presented as low range sounds marking the average CO2 below 300 ppm.
The final section of the piece isolates 8 years of modern CO2 data demonstrating the drastic rise of atmospheric concentration of this greenhouse gas in one of the most remote places on earth. The range of this data is just 388 ppm to 411 pm.
This piece is composed using climate data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Carbon Cycle Cooperative Global Air Sampling Network. All samples are taken from the South Pole Observatory, Palmer Station, and Ice Core samples from Antarctica.
Photograph By Ian van Coller, National Science Foundation on November 22, 2019 during hurricane force winds of a mid-day snow storm at Allan Hills field camp. (photolibrary.usap.gov/PhotoDetails.a…s-blizzard.jpg) Photograph By Angela Garner, United States Antarctic Program on Septmber 8, 2006. The moon over the Royal Society Range, near Ross Island. Vehicles preparing the Annual Sea Ice Runway can be seen in the foreground. https://photolibrary.usap.gov/#2-1
This piece was premiered in South Bend Indiana on January 8th, 2023.