LBNL Study
Sep. 12th, 2008 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danalwynA study I've been waiting for came out from LBNL this week.
The essence of the study deals with the environmental effects of replacing all roofs and pavements in the world's major city areas with cooler substances, simply by making them whiter and more capable of reflecting, instead of absorbing, sunlight and heat. Several estimates are made throughout the course of the slides I have, which may or may not accurate, but their conclusion is that every 1000 square feet of roof that you paint white will offset the temperature increase caused by the production of 10 tons of Carbon Dioxide. If we upgrade all urban areas to have cooler roofs and cooler pavements, the estimate is that we will counteract 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide production - more then the world produces in a year.
I'm not sure how accurate those figures are, but given the billions of dollars we'll save alone from reduced air conditioning prices, I think it may be definitely worth it.
The presentation was made by Hashem Akbari, of the Heat Island Group, at this week's California Climate Change Conference.
The essence of the study deals with the environmental effects of replacing all roofs and pavements in the world's major city areas with cooler substances, simply by making them whiter and more capable of reflecting, instead of absorbing, sunlight and heat. Several estimates are made throughout the course of the slides I have, which may or may not accurate, but their conclusion is that every 1000 square feet of roof that you paint white will offset the temperature increase caused by the production of 10 tons of Carbon Dioxide. If we upgrade all urban areas to have cooler roofs and cooler pavements, the estimate is that we will counteract 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide production - more then the world produces in a year.
I'm not sure how accurate those figures are, but given the billions of dollars we'll save alone from reduced air conditioning prices, I think it may be definitely worth it.
The presentation was made by Hashem Akbari, of the Heat Island Group, at this week's California Climate Change Conference.
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Date: 2008-09-12 10:47 pm (UTC)I'm not sure about how massive the albedo change is, as you're talking about shifts to less then 1% of the surface of the earth. For the most part, you're canceling the albdeo change created by massive blacktopping, both on surfaces and on roofs, so the climate change should not be extraordinary. The reduction of the heat island effect should be smaller then the initial impetus. Also, how does reflecting light give a longer path then non-reflecting? Is it based on the average sun angle through atmosphere, or something else I'm not remembering?
I have to admit, this is not my specialty, and I think it shows.