Glossary

The words this project uses, from music, water and climate, and data

This is an interdisciplinary project, so its words come from several fields. Each term has one meaning everywhere: the data dictionaries use these definitions word for word, and a test checks that they do. Where a term appears in a dictionary, the dictionary is named.

Music

Aeolian cadence

The chord on the lowered seventh degree resolving to the minor tonic (VII to i). (in: okanagan-wy2024-mapping)

bar

A unit of musical time holding a fixed number of beats. In the Water Year pieces a bar is three days; in the Climate Pair it is one year.

chord loop

A short sequence of chords that repeats. Each river or lake phase has its own loop of four chords.

dotted quarter

A beat one and a half quarter notes long; four of them fill a bar of twelve eighth notes. (in: climate-pair-atlantic-mapping, climate-pair-pacific-mapping)

drone

A long, sustained sound under the music, usually on the home note.

mode

A scale’s pattern of whole and half steps on a home note. The pieces use a ladder from dark (Aeolian) to bright (Ionian); Dorian and Aeolian are both minor, and Dorian’s raised sixth makes it the warmer of the two. (in: climate-pair-atlantic-mapping, climate-pair-pacific-mapping, granby-wy2024-mapping, okanagan-wy2024-mapping)

ostinato

A short pattern repeated bar after bar. (in: granby-wy2024-mapping, okanagan-wy2024-mapping)

pedal point

A note held (or repeated) in the bass while the harmony above it changes. (in: okanagan-wy2024-mapping)

pizzicato

Plucking a bowed string instrument’s strings. (in: granby-wy2024-mapping, okanagan-wy2024-mapping)

reverb

The echoes of a space that trail after a sound. The pieces change the room with the weather, such as a dark, short room under snow.

scale degree

A note’s position in the scale, counted from the home note (0). (in: climate-pair-atlantic-mapping, climate-pair-pacific-mapping, granby-wy2024-mapping, okanagan-wy2024-mapping)

stem

One instrument group’s audio on its own, before it is mixed with the others.

tresillo

A 3-3-2 rhythm (eight eighth-note pulses grouped as three, three and two). (in: granby-wy2024-mapping)

voice leading

Moving each note of one chord to a nearby note of the next, so the parts move smoothly.

Water and climate

ACE

Accumulated cyclone energy, a measure of a storm’s (or a season’s) combined strength and duration. (in: climate-pair-records)

AMO

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a slow swing in North Atlantic sea-surface temperature over several decades. (in: climate-pair-records)

anomaly

The difference between a value and the average for a reference period. (in: climate-pair-records)

attraction flow

Water released at a fishway’s entrance to draw migrating fish to it.

best track

An agency’s after-the-fact record of a storm’s position and strength every six hours. (in: climate-pair-records)

discharge

The volume of water passing a gauge per second, in m³/s. (in: water-year-records)

ENSO

El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Pacific’s two-to-seven-year swing between warm (El Niño) and cool (La Niña) states. (in: climate-pair-records)

freshet

The spring rise of a river as snow melts.

gauge datum

The fixed reference level a gauge’s water levels are measured from; it is local to the gauge. (in: water-year-records)

GPP

Gross primary productivity: the carbon plants take up by photosynthesis, here estimated from satellite observations and a light-use-efficiency model. (in: water-year-records)

Keeling curve

The record of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, begun by Charles David Keeling in 1958. (in: climate-pair-records)

NAO

North Atlantic Oscillation, the see-saw of air pressure between Iceland and the Azores. (in: climate-pair-records)

ONI

Oceanic Niño Index, NOAA’s standard measure of ENSO. (in: climate-pair-records)

PDO

Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a slow pattern of North Pacific sea-surface temperature that shifts every decade or two. (in: climate-pair-records)

Saffir-Simpson scale

The five hurricane categories, by 1-minute sustained wind. (in: climate-pair-records)

sea-ice extent

The area of ocean with at least 15% ice cover. (in: climate-pair-records)

tailrace

The channel carrying water away below a dam.

trace

Precipitation too small to measure; ECCC records it as 0 with the flag T. (in: water-year-records)

VEI

Volcanic Explosivity Index. (in: climate-pair-records)

water year

October 1 to September 30, named for the year it ends in (WY2024 = October 2023 to September 2024), so a winter’s snow and the melt it feeds fall in the same year. (in: water-year-records)

Data

composite

A value summarizing several days of satellite passes (8 days here), which reduces gaps from cloud. (in: water-year-records)

hysteresis

A rule that needs a clear move past a threshold to change state, so a value hovering near it doesn’t flip back and forth. (in: climate-pair-atlantic-mapping, climate-pair-pacific-mapping)

percentile

The share of values below a given one. (in: granby-wy2024-mapping)

retrieved, derived, simulated

The three tags on every layer (R, D, S). Retrieved is a measurement as published; derived is computed from measurements or the calendar; simulated is modelled timing, not observed.

smoothing

Averaging each value with its neighbours (here a centred moving average over some days) so the music follows the trend, not the daily noise.

Sources

DART

Columbia River Data Access in Real Time, a data service of Columbia Basin Research, University of Washington.

ECCC

Environment and Climate Change Canada. (in: water-year-records)

MODIS

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. (in: water-year-records)

STN_ID

ECCC’s numeric station identifier, used by its OGC API; not the same as the Climate ID. (in: water-year-records)

WSC

Water Survey of Canada, the federal agency that runs Canada’s river and lake gauges. (in: water-year-records)

How the pieces are made

data dictionary

A plain-text description of a dataset (what each column is, its units, how it was measured and its quirks) that can be checked against the data. This project uses the data-dict format.

parquet

A compact file format for tables, readable from Python, R and most data tools.

remix

A new track made from a published one by changing its named settings, credited to whoever made it and linked to its parent.

render lock

The file (renders.lock.json) recording, for each track version, the code, data, seed and output hashes, so anyone can re-render it and check the result is identical.

seed

The starting number for the random choices in a piece (small timing and loudness variations), fixed so each render comes out the same.

SHA-256

A fingerprint of a file’s exact bytes; if a single byte changes, the fingerprint changes.

variant

A published track rendered with a few settings changed (such as a frozen mode or no percussion), to hear what a layer contributes.