Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions

The ability to understand modern day climate relies on a foundational understanding of past climate variability and the ways in which the planet is stabilized by interconnected feedbacks. This article presents a unique method for translating records of past climate transitions preserved in deep-sea sediments to broad audiences through an immersive visualization. This visualization is a multimedia installation that incorporates geochemical records of glacial and interglacial transitions and model predictions for future anthropogenic warming to create an immersive experience for viewers, inviting them to engage with and reflect on the subtle, nuanced differences between subsets of Earth's history. This work showcases five intervals of time, beginning with the inception of modern glacial-interglacial cyclicity (~one million years ago), comparing past climate with model results for projected future anthropogenic warming (until 2099). The installation consists of several experimental projections, one for each subset of time, displayed on different surfaces in a room. As viewers move through the space, the projections slowly cycle through different climatic transitions, using animation methods like speed, color, layering, and repetition, all generated through site-specific data to convey the planet's unique behavior as it relates to global climate. This work provides a framework for unique scientific data visualization, with generative animations created using a Perlin Noise algorithm at the center of the installation. Research variables, like sea surface temperature, nutrient dynamics, and the rate of climate change, impact formal outcomes like color, scale, and animation speed, which are all easy to manipulate and connect to specific data. This approach also allows the possibility of publishing data online and provides a mechanism for scaling visual parameters to a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative data.