A new web tool called Earth Garden lets users spin a virtual globe to listen to real-world field recordings from locations around the planet, from waves on remote Atlantic islands to crickets in Tanzania and rainfall in Manhattan. It is inspired by Radio Garden, which offers a similar globe-based interface for exploring live radio stations, but swaps broadcasts for ambient environmental sound, making it a novel way to browse the world through audio rather than sight.

The recordings are sourced from Freesound, a crowdsourced sound library, meaning quality and volume levels vary between clips, and coverage skews heavily towards the US, Europe and particularly the UK rather than being evenly spread worldwide. Users can set the globe to rotate automatically, with sounds transitioning smoothly as the on-screen reticle passes over new locations, and there is also an option to layer generic ambient drones over the recordings for a more soothing listening experience.