Answer to global warming, maybe?

Question

After reading the paper an idea hit me; if all the ice caps are melting meaning more sunlight isn't being reflected back by the ice caps why don't we just replace rooftop tiles with white tiles to create the same effect, if enough people do this, in theory, it should work.

I want to know what you think about this.

Answer 1

...and what do we do about the greenhouse gasses?

Merely reflecting the sun without dealing with the very gasses that keep the heat in hardly helps. Yes, the ice caps do reflect back some heat, but the greenhouse gasses keep more of it in than what's reflected. The better thing to do is to reduce the greenhouse gasses - the key element of the problem.

Answer 2

Global warming is a natural occurrence. What makes us think that we are so mighty that we can do anything about it?
Why have we had so many previous 'ice-ages' that have then warmed up?
I understand what you are saying - but if you go to 'Google Earth' you will see that we don't really have that many roof tops to do the job. We would need to grow white grass and white sand and white rocks.
In fact, an idea has just hit me, too! Green plants 'eat' most of the crud that we chuck out - get Australia to rebuild all the rain forests that they wrecked a century or two ago - that might help a bit!

Answer 3

Frodo Baggins hasn't a clue.

Your idea sounds good in theory, but - hey! - if you're going to replace all the world's roof tiles (and in most countries, they don't have tiles, much too expensive, they have flat concrete roofs or corrugated steel) it would be much more useful to replace them with solar panels which would produce electricity and reduce carbon (greenhouse) emissions, AND reflect sunlight. But solar panels need cleaning and because people are so lazy, in countries like Israel where they went big on solar panels they're moving away from them now because when they're covered in dust or dirt they don't work.

Answer 4

thejur has the right idea, but he/she missed a decimal point or two. That's 60,000 km^2, not 60,000 "million" km^2. 60 X 10^9 m^2 / 10^6 m^2 per km^2 = 60 X 10^3 km^2. Compared to the Antarctica area, 60,000 km^2 is piddling.

Global warming is a natural event. It's on again-off again cycles have been going on for millions of years. The problem with this cycle though is that it's coming way faster and stronger than ever before. It's that extra speed of onset and measurable CO2 levels that are going "off the charts," according to Al Gore, that are attributable to mankind's contribution to global warming. [See source.]

Answer 5

Nice idea but doing a quick calculation here, if everyone in the world has a roof of surface area 10 metres squared. which if anything is generous so there are 6 billion people x 10 m^2 thats 60 billion m^2, which is equivelent to 60,000 square kilometres , however just the antarctica (south pole) has a surface area of 14.2 million square kilometres, so unfortunatly the significants of everyone in the entire world have their roof reflective would be neglible, plus it would mean colder houses which it would take more energy to heat. Sorry nice idea in principle, keep having them, what we need is ideas.

Answer 6

Any man-made object must reflect light better than plants, the trouble with white tiles is they are not made, you could write to a tile company with your suggestion. Could be a good idea for people into environmentally friendly homes. May be a good marketing idea.

Answer 7

I think it could help. But , it would be even better to make all surfaces reflective especially blacktop roadways. In addition where possible and practical solar arrays on rooftops would help cut down on gasses by reducing emissions from power plants. Every mall parking lot should be covered with a solar array for instance.

Answer 8

I think it would work provided all the houses on earth were at the poles. At any rate, it would help the environment because you would keep the house cool in the summer reducing the need for so much air-conditioning. But it would not work during the winter months.

Answer 9

Possibly, but they would need to be made to ressmble the polar ice caps to reflect the sun. It would be bloody expensive though, it probably be cheaper to reduce CO2 emissions.

Answer 10

Anything at this point is worth a shot no matter how bizarre the idea may seem.
You should perhaps put this to your local MP and see what they think,

At least someone cares enough to think hard about it!
Bravo to you.