Ice Core Visualization Installazione artistica

Press Kit

Unique Properties

Ice Core brings together the aesthetics of layers of ice with the immense amount of weather information core samples contain. It features eight acrylic tubes filled with layered gel wax, with each layer denoting the average data contained within a thousand-year sample.

Dimensions & Packaging

Each ice core tube is 8 inches in diameter and 3 feet in length

Tags

Ice Core, Art, Installation, Visualizations, Generative

Production Technology

First the data set is obtained from NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Below shows the data set used in diagram format based on the Vostok Petit data. Carbon dioxide in comparison of global temperature variation is chosen. Generally carbon dioxide production is related to burning of carbon and other energy consumption activities. While global warming is closely related to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere especially carbon dioxide level.

Design Challenge

I was brainstorming along the line of creating something semi-transparent, which lends close resemblance to original ice cores while giving the flexibility of making it layer by layer. Therefore, the process of making wax candles came in handy. Hence, I melted layers of wax with the measured amount of dye is poured into the tube layer by layer. I divided the acrylic tube into four sections, and each tube represents a hundred thousand years. Then I further divided each tube into a hundred layers. Therefore each layer of the wax represents average data over a thousand years.

Research

A greyscale color scheme depicts the carbon dioxide variation over the last four hundred thousand years. In comparison, a color scheme based on the weather map describes temperature variations. Red is associated with heat; blue indicates freezing temperature. The goal to show temperature variation. When four tubes are displayed side by side, we can see that the variation corresponds. If more carbon dioxide is present in the global environment, the higher the temperature. Inversely, the lighter content indicates a lower carbon dioxide production and therefore followed by a generally colder climate.

Inspiration

Ice cores are long and condensed tubes that are extracted from the extremely cold areas where snow fell and accumulated over the years with minimal melting and eventually compressed to ice sheets. The layers of snow contain rich information about our global climate. For example, dust, ash, pollen, bubbles of atmospheric gas and radioactive substances. This project is particularly concerned with carbon dioxide content in the gaseous bubbles trapped inside each layer of ice.

Project Duration

Project started in Buffalo since 2012 and complete in San Francisco Bay Area by 2018

Operation Flow

A very interesting aspect of this making is the tactility of the whole process. I wanted the audience to have a direct correlation to what they see in front of them and appreciate the beauty of the ice core as I have been. Also, it is observed that there are four general cycles in terms of variation of the global climate. Currently, according to the trend, we are moving towards the time period that temperature is predicted to go up. Therefore it lends question to that if global warming is a manmade phenomenon or it is part of the global climate change cycle.

Image Credits

Photographer Yingri Guan, Variations, 2014