Sonification of Daily Weather Records: Issues of Perception, Attention and Memory in Design Choices

Daily climate records that include temperature and precipitation observations, along with other optional “event” records (such as a severe storm occurrence or the highlighting of record high or low temperatures) are a form of multivariate time series data that is well suited to sonification. Our project describes and demonstrates sonification of historical monthly weather records from Lincoln, Nebraska that allow perceptual comparisons between corresponding monthly records from different years for illustration of climatic trends and fluctuations. Choices of data-sound mapping schemes and temporal properties of the display will be related to basic principles of auditory perception, attention and cognitio