Efficacy of cool roofs varies from city to city
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 03:00
in Earth & Climate
(PhysOrg.com) -- While cool roofs and pavements have been found to cool the planet by preventing energy from being radiated back into the atmosphere, previous studies have not accounted for atmospheric feedbacks that may result from changing the surface reflectivity of urban areas. A new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) breaks new ground by using a high-resolution model of the continental United States that incorporates land-surface feedback to probe the effects of deploying light-colored roads and rooftops.