Characterizing roof albedo for cool roof strategies to mitigate urban heat
Topics:
Keywords: urban climate, heat, remote sensing
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract
Authors:
Ben Crawford, University of Colorado Denver
Makoto Nakayoshi, Tokyo University of Science
Yuya Takane, Japan National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Kylie Wagner, University of Colorado Denver
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Abstract
Extreme heat in cities is an emerging climate hazard as urban populations continue to grow and global climate warms. Promoting high-albedo ‘cool roofs’ that reflect, rather than absorb, solar energy is a potential strategy to mitigate extreme urban heat. However, there remain uncertainties regarding the magnitude of cooling that can be realistically achieved at neighborhood to city-wide scales and the specific physical mechanisms involved (e.g. turbulent mixing, temporal and spatial variability of multi-spectral reflectivity). Basic physical understanding is currently limited by lack of high-resolution albedo estimates of current roof stock. In this work, we measure and compare multi-spectral reflectivity from representative rooftops in contrasting cities (Tokyo, Japan and Denver, USA) using on-site measurements and remotely sensed products. On-site measurements are used to predict and extract broad-band reflectivity from narrow-band remotely sensed measurements as input for high-resolution urban climate models. Model simulations will be used to investigate micro-meteorological physical processes and evaluate cooling potential for various cool roof adoption scenarios.
Characterizing roof albedo for cool roof strategies to mitigate urban heat
Category
Poster Abstract
