The cascading effects of climate change create their own sound; but no one has really bothered to listen. We are recording the sounds of glacial recession and its effects on meltwater runoff downstream, the sounds of ice melting, rocks and sediment moving and people adapting, from the source to the sink. We are following the water rhythms of nature and humans, a dialogue between the lifeblood of both people and the earth system, freshwater. We believe that sonic monitoring of glaciers and rivers is a novel and useful tool to capture and document both the physical and cultural adaptations to climate change.
We have been creating immersive soundscapes that run from the ice to the sea on various continents, from the coastal mountains of British Columbia and Alaska, to the edges of the Greenland Ice Sheet, to the mighty River Ganga in the Indian Himalaya and the Fraser River in western Canada. Listening to this acoustic journey tells the story of the cascading impacts of climate change. As the recordings move from cold crackles of supraglacial streams to the cacophonous expanse of the massive rivers, audiences can listen to the stories of the ice, the water, the landscapes and its peoples, and experience for themselves how these systems are intertwined.
We hope that our work will allow the Earth and its people to speak for themselves. Listen to one of our soundworks, Water Rhythms, published in BC Studies here: https://bcstudies.com/issues/soundworks/
And explore the story of the might Fraser River here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/eebfafdcaa314b52beb37c85e6f00201