I’m sharing a small experiment called Letters From The Earth. The idea is simple: instead of presenting climate and environmental data as charts or stats, the system converts daily signals into expressive, first-person prose — “letters” from regions on Earth describing how they feel.
What it does
- There is an interactive globe covering 103 locations worldwide.
- Every day the engine collects signals like temperature, humidity/moisture, wind, air clarity, and anomaly deviations.
- These raw values are normalized, compressed into a feature vector, then passed through a biome-specific, emotionally aware translation layer. Based on that it produces a “letter” written in the voice of the biome (forest, tundra, desert, mangrove, etc). No jargon, no statistics — just sensory, atmospheric narrative.
- On the site you pick a location, read that day’s letter, and if you want compare with the raw data. There are filters by biome type, severity (anomaly), region and date so you can browse previous days and regions.
Why I built it
I believe data does not have to be understood only by analysts. Data has expressive potential. By translating environmental signals into narrative I am exploring whether “data as empathy” can help more people connect with places, climate, and environmental change.
This isn’t a product or a dashboard. It is an experiment in new forms of data expression — emotional, narrative, sensory. And letters are only the first output. The same core could produce poems, ambient soundscapes, symbolic visuals or other formats.
What I would love feedback on
- Does the mapping from raw signal → narrative “mood” feel meaningful or evocative?
- Thoughts on biome modeling, signal normalization, and region-specific voice.
- Ideas for other output modalities beyond prose — audio, ambient sound, visual.
If you’re curious, the link above goes to a live demo. I’d appreciate any comments, questions, or ideas.
Thanks for reading. I’m happy to dive into technical or design-level details if anyone is interested.