Global Cooling: Increasing World-Wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2
Abstract
Modification of urban albedos reduces summertime urban temperatures, resulting in a better urban air quality and building air-conditioning savings. Furthermore, increasing urban albedos has the added benefit of reflecting some of the incoming global solar radiation and countering to some extent the effects of global warming. In many urban areas, pavements and roofs constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20-25%, pavements about 40%). Using reflective materials, both roof and the pavement albedos can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.10, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. Many studies have demonstrated building cooling-energy savings in excess of 20% upon raising roof reflectivity from an existing 10-20% to about 60% (a U.S. potential savings in excess of $$1 billion (B) per year in net annual energy bills). On a global basis, our preliminary estimate is that increasing the world-wide albedos of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to removing {approx} 22-40 Gt of CO{sub 2} from the atmosphere. Since, 55% of the emitted CO{sub 2} remains in the atmosphere, removal of 22-40 Gt of CO{sub 2} from the atmosphere is equivalent to reducing global CO{submore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- Environmental Energy Technologies Division
- OSTI Identifier:
- 962706
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-2040E
Journal ID: ISSN 0165-0009; CLCHDX; TRN: US200916%%343
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal Name:
- Climatic Change
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Climatic Change; Journal ID: ISSN 0165-0009
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54; AIR CONDITIONING; AIR QUALITY; ALBEDO; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; HEAT EXCHANGERS; MODIFICATIONS; PAVEMENTS; REFLECTIVITY; REMOVAL; ROOFS; SOLAR RADIATION; URBAN AREAS
Citation Formats
Akbari, Hashem, Menon, Surabi, and Rosenfeld, Arthur. Global Cooling: Increasing World-Wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2. United States: N. p., 2008.
Web.
Akbari, Hashem, Menon, Surabi, & Rosenfeld, Arthur. Global Cooling: Increasing World-Wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2. United States.
Akbari, Hashem, Menon, Surabi, and Rosenfeld, Arthur. 2008.
"Global Cooling: Increasing World-Wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/962706.
@article{osti_962706,
title = {Global Cooling: Increasing World-Wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2},
author = {Akbari, Hashem and Menon, Surabi and Rosenfeld, Arthur},
abstractNote = {Modification of urban albedos reduces summertime urban temperatures, resulting in a better urban air quality and building air-conditioning savings. Furthermore, increasing urban albedos has the added benefit of reflecting some of the incoming global solar radiation and countering to some extent the effects of global warming. In many urban areas, pavements and roofs constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20-25%, pavements about 40%). Using reflective materials, both roof and the pavement albedos can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.10, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. Many studies have demonstrated building cooling-energy savings in excess of 20% upon raising roof reflectivity from an existing 10-20% to about 60% (a U.S. potential savings in excess of $1 billion (B) per year in net annual energy bills). On a global basis, our preliminary estimate is that increasing the world-wide albedos of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to removing {approx} 22-40 Gt of CO{sub 2} from the atmosphere. Since, 55% of the emitted CO{sub 2} remains in the atmosphere, removal of 22-40 Gt of CO{sub 2} from the atmosphere is equivalent to reducing global CO{sub 2} emissions by 40-73 Gt. At {approx} $25/tonne of CO{sub 2}, a 40-73 Gt CO{sub 2} emission reduction from changing the albedo of roofs and paved surfaces is worth about $1,000B to 1800B. These estimated savings are dependent on assumptions used in this study, but nevertheless demonstrate considerable benefits that may be obtained from cooler roofs and pavements.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/962706},
journal = {Climatic Change},
issn = {0165-0009},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2008},
month = {Mon Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2008}
}