The long-term effect of increasing the albedo of urban areas
Open Access
- 12 April 2012
- journal article
- letter
- Published by IOP Publishing in Environmental Research Letters
- Vol. 7 (2), 024004
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/7/2/024004
Abstract
Solar reflective urban surfaces (white rooftops and light-colored pavements) can increase the albedo of an urban area by about 0.1. Increasing the albedo of urban and human settlement areas can in turn decrease atmospheric temperature and could potentially offset some of the anticipated temperature increase caused by global warming. We have simulated the long-term (decadal to centennial) effect of increasing urban surface albedos using a spatially explicit global climate model of intermediate complexity. We first carried out two sets of simulations in which we increased the albedo of all land areas between ±20° and ±45° latitude respectively. The results of these simulations indicate a long-term global cooling effect of 3 × 10−15 K for each 1 m2 of a surface with an albedo increase of 0.01. This temperature reduction corresponds to an equivalent CO2 emission reduction of about 7 kg, based on recent estimates of the amount of global warming per unit CO2 emission. In a series of additional simulations, we increased the albedo of urban locations only, on the basis of two independent estimates of the spatial extent of urban areas. In these simulations, global cooling ranged from 0.01 to 0.07 K, which corresponds to a CO2 equivalent emission reduction of 25–150 billion tonnes of CO2.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Effects of Urban Surfaces and White Roofs on Global and Regional ClimateJournal of Climate, 2012
- Biogeophysical versus biogeochemical climate response to historical anthropogenic land cover changeGeophysical Research Letters, 2010
- Lifetime of Anthropogenic Climate Change: Millennial Time Scales of Potential CO2 and Surface Temperature PerturbationsJournal of Climate, 2009
- Global cooling: increasing world-wide urban albedos to offset CO2Climatic Change, 2008
- Surface temperature cooling trends and negative radiative forcing due to land use change toward greenhouse farming in southeastern SpainJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2008
- Evolution of Cool-Roof Standards in the USAdvances in Building Energy Research, 2008
- Urban Surfaces and Heat Island Mitigation PotentialsJournal of the Human-Environment System, 2008
- Active Amplification of the Terrestrial Albedo to Mitigate Climate Change: An Exploratory StudyMitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2006
- Cool surfaces and shade trees to reduce energy use and improve air quality in urban areasSolar Energy, 2001
- Global warming feedbacks on terrestrial carbon uptake under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Emission ScenariosGlobal Biogeochemical Cycles, 2001