White Roofs And Climate Change

Recently i ve argued that in some cases as in discerning the long term global temperature trend a little common sense will suffice.

White roofs and climate change.

The climate impact of white roofs may provide a case in point. Volunteers have taken white paint to nearly 7 million square feet of tar roofs in the city though that is still only about 1 percent of the potential roof area. New research shows that white roofs may actually add to global warming. Reflective surfaces are a form of geoengineering.

Reflective surfaces can deliver high solar reflectance the ability to reflect the visible infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths of the sun reducing heat transfer to the surface and high thermal emittance the ability to radiate absorbed or non reflected solar energy. Installing white roofs or painting them white has been promoted as a way to help slow global warming. People should paint their roofs white and drive cool cars on pale coloured roads to avoid devastating climate change us energy secretary and nobel prize winning physicist steven chu has advised. There are many small scale initiatives in cities to make roof surfaces more reflective.

How white roofs help to reflect the sun s heat april 14 2020 3 54pm edt nilesh bakshi maibritt pedersen zari te herenga waka victoria university of wellington. The most well known type of reflective surface is the cool roof. The lab s research confirms the arizona findings that white roofs reduce global warming proving three times more effective at countering climate change than even green roofs thanks to all that. Effects of urban surfaces and white roofs on global and regional.

Plans to slow climate change by reflecting sunlight back into space could in fact raise temperatures a new study concludes.