A study that has been anticipated for a very long time on Geophysical research letters has given new strength to the idea that by painting your urban rooftops white, you will be able to reflect any sunlight off it and this would have a sort of cooling effect on our planet as a whole. Researchers say that these white roof tops are the most effective when they are used in cities as these places are usually a lot warner than the rural areas as there are asphalt roads in cities, as well as tar roofs & various other surfaces which can absorb heat. Even though, many earlier studies have proven this to be a fact, in this particular case, the team made use of a computer model for stimulating the total solar radiation that these surfaces managed to absorb and then reflect successfully. The models showed that if each and every roof in a city were to be painted white, there would be a much reduced demand for AC’s & the ultimate result of this is that the city, as a whole, would see a drop in temperature of close to 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

“It is our belief that it is of utmost importance for us to model temperatures within each city as this is where the major portion of the world’s population resides,” said an author part of the study & senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Gordon Bonan. “This is going to be quite an important tool for model cities and would also help people in forming a strategy tat would help them to alleviate warm temperatures,” said Gordon. There have been many other studies which have showed that even though white roofs do manage to reduce the cost of air conditioning by around 20% when the sun is at its hottest during summer, the disadvantage which can be used as a counter here is the extra heat that it would take for warming up these buildings in the winter when the climate gets very cold. Mr. Bonan felt that even though the main findings of their study showed that white roofs would really help reduce global temeperatures effectively, “it would also add to the additional cost incurred on heating these buildings during winters because of the white roofs.” According to him, white roofs would do best in climates which tend to stay pretty warm throughout the year.