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WASHINGTON: Cities can battle global warming with paint to some extent, say scientists. According to the New Scientist, a global simulation has revealed that highly reflective white roofs could cool cities by an average of 0.6°C.
Dark city surfaces like roofs and roads absorb and radiate heat, leaving cities up to 3°C hotter than surrounding areas. Painting roofs white would reflect some of that heat back into space and cool temperatures, much as wearing a white shirt on a sunny day can make one feel cooler than wearing a dark shirt.
A team at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, combined climate models with a simulation of how temperatures are modified by city landscapes.
They found that in a hypothetical world in which cities sported highly reflective white roofs, urban temperatures were on average 0.6°C cooler than in cities with existing, mostly black roofing materials.
In the real world, says lead author Keith Oleson, the benefits might be slightly less as rooftops get covered in the dust. The findings have been published in the Geophysical Research Letters.
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