To lower the temperature, why not ban things like dark colored buildings or cars?

Question

I'm not sure if it would make a difference, but wouldn't it do something? If there's less dark colors to absorb heat and more colors that reflect light rays out the atmosphere, it could make a significant difference, right?
This would also be great since it doesn't require a lot of money and its really not that hard to just repaint things that are black, so why don't we do it?

Well, if the white painted things don't absorb light, they reflect the heat away and possibly out towards space. The newly painted items won't be absorbing any heat.

Lui gave an answer that made me think a little more. If the buildings didn't absorb the heat, it wouldn't require as much cooling, therefore, you wouldn't need to burn fossil fuels for electricity to run things such as AC or a fan in your home. Thanks for your answers people!

Answer 1

The only difference it has is on the car or building.

So you could make an argument that it would reduce the need for the level of air conditioning currently seen in residential areas.

I forget the city, but somewhere in the USA they're painting roofs white. The reason is for the houses to not absorb heat as much, so they don't need as much cooling, it's neat actually. They do it free for low income people, which I think is great.

There's some stuff about it here:

http://eetd.lbl.gov/HeatIsland/PUBS/PAINTING/

So it doesn't affect it directly like you say, but indirectly, because there'd be less need to use heavy power in the summer.

Answer 2

There is a logic in your question but you've sort of answered it for yourself by saying it wouldn't make a difference.

It would make some difference but it would be small. A very rough calculation would suggest each person would have to 'convert' about 2000 square metres of dark surface to light surface.

To put it into context - to reflect enough sunlight away from Earth would require a mirror in space with a surface area of 100,000 square kilometres, that's about 15 square metres for each person on the planet.

The mirror would reflect 100% of sunlight BEFORE it entered our atmosphere, banning dark colours would reflect a much smaller amount (don't know how much) AFTER it had entered the atmosphere.

What you'd need is for each person to 'convert' something like 150 square metres of black surface into white surface and those surfaces would have to be perpendicular to the sun. They wouldn't be because the sun is rarely directly overhead so you'd now be looking at about 500 square metres. The solar mirror principle would work 24 hours a day, we average just 12 hours a day of daylight so now it's 1000 square metres and if it's cloudy for half the time the area now becomes 2000 square metres.

The figure for the solar mirror is an accurate one, all the others are estimates but you get the idea.

Answer 3

this is a good question indeed!!!

but dark colored buildings and cars dont give out heat, all it does is absorb the heat and make the inside of the building or car hotter. It does lower temperature if you do that, but on a scale of lowering temperature from 1 to 50: i would vote maybe 10 because it in a somewhat manner does contribute to lowering temperature.

Answer 4

The extra heat would need to go somewhere, Since it is not being absorbed, it would just heat-up the newly painted items / structures, which in turn, would still give off a large amount of heat.

Answer 5

Very Good question. The process in which concrete building attribute to temperature rise is called as "URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT" - the most famous model is of DALLAS, TX. Many tornadoes in this area are caused by extensive heating of the building. There was big show about this on National Geo or discovery(forgotten which one).

Dark colour may enhance the urban effect - but it isn't the basic cause - the real cause is concrete itself - thats what stores the heat.

Governments all around the world should regulate the construction law and propose modification for the buildings causing massive storage of temperature.

But remember the "island effect" is effective within densely populated concrete buildings area - it may solve the local problems - not the global warming - but that's a good start !!!

Answer 6

I agree that this will be a sturdy commence, and at the same time as they are at it they prefer to go back up with a more beneficial ideal answer for black-topped roadways that soaks up the nice and cozy temperature. anybody knows black topped roofs or roadways are attracking warmth. If we may be able to deliver a guy to the moon it form of sounds like we may be able to arise with a more beneficial ideal product the reflects warmth from the earth. Which in go back would help with gobal warming.

Answer 7

The difference would be tiny, just not noticeable. Buildings and cars cover a tiny fraction of the Earth. It's not worth even the small cost.

In global warming, it's easy to get distracted by trivial things. We need to focus our efforts on the important ones, mostly the excessive use of fossil fuels. That's what we need to do to solve it.

Here's what we really should do:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf

Answer 8

Just think where would this reflected heat will go. Yes, Ofcourse in atmosphere surrounding you where you have high concentration of gases to absorb it.

Answer 9

A dark building or car is not one in number. They are fled all around. Besides classifying colours as dark or light is not easy. And even if they are removed it will hardly make any difference in the temperature.

Answer 10

Perfect, another law is all we need-- oh, and millions in stolen money to back it up and pay thugs to enforce it. What we need is to grow up and move beyond our blind faith that government is the answer.
Environmentalism as we know it (as Al Gore, PETA and Greenpeace know it) is a religion; what the Earth really needs is more atheists, more unbelievers, more skeptics. Nadia above me was spot on telling us to "think about it".
Think.