How is your Albedo?

Albedo is how reflective or how white something is. Fresh snow, on natures list of white things, ranks at the top. The term, when talking about climate change, is used occasionally but I have a tough time remembering it. I must run through a few experiences, and chuckle, before I can start a serious conversation on the climate implications of less snow and ice, in other words, our loss of albedo.

One personal episode always pops into my head when I think of albedo. It occurred just after finishing a job in Morocco. I was on a train opposite a couple of well-tanned German gals returning home from a beach holiday. Their English was perfect, so we chatted easily. One of the girls told me about an experience on the beach when something bright caught her eye about a kilometer away. It was getting closer and so bright white she said she had to squint her eyes in pain. The object, she said, was an Englishman! Their Teutonic sense of humor appealed to me and I joined in their laughter.

Sometimes, when I give climate presentations, while bringing up albedo, I tell the story of two red-neck brothers. The older brother is Bear and the younger is Billie-Bob. Billie-Bob has been working on the farm out in the sun. The skin tone of Billie has Bear worried. He says to Billie, “Billie-Bob I am concerned!” and spits out a little chaw, “Your albedo is getting a little weak.” Bear reaches in his pocket and pulls out a tube of sunblock SPF50 and thrusts it at his brother. “Here use this. You wouldn’t want someone to be confused about our genealogical heritage, would you?”

Or, you can remember albedo simply by remembering an albino deer is white. This obvious reminder always comes to me last. So much for my memory retrieval system.

The earth’s albedo is very important. The sun delivers, on average, 3.5 to 7 kilowatts of sunlight energy to each square meter of earth every day. Harvesting this energy is what makes solar panels so effective and practical.

If the sun hits an Englishman, Billie-Bob’s SFP50, an albino deer, or snow the sunlight heads back to outer space without heating the earth.

If the sun hits something like an asphalt highway, a black roof or a black tennis court, the sunshine is transformed to infrared energy. (Yes, I have melted shoes on tennis courts, Ouch!)

Unlike reflected sunlight, the infrared energy has a tougher time escaping earth. The greenhouse gasses, from carbon pollution, absorb the energy and reradiates some of it back down at us. This absorption-reradiation is what heats the earth and the reason we must cease burning coal, oil and gas which is the source of carbon pollution.

Anything we can do to reflect sunlight will cool us as a planet to include cooling our homes and businesses. In major metropolitan areas businesses and people are painting their roofs white. We can too. The next time we reroof we should consider a reflective shingle or metal roof. Scientists have discovered colors, while not white, are remarkably reflective and attractive. Manufacturers are now making them. Think albedo.

At one time I had a white roof. When I went to reroof white shingles were unavailable. I would not put a black roof on again. The white roof was cooler in the summer and in the winter the roof was colder making it ice-damn free.  The more reflective, the more energy efficient. Efficient cool roofs save money and are more comfortable.

Every business, public building, or school should investigate reflective “cool roofs.” In the Upper Peninsula few of our buildings have air conditioning. I grew up in the Twin Cities of Minnesota during the 50s and 60s. I do not remember anyone having air conditioning. Now, I do not know of anyone who doesn’t have air-conditioning there. Global warming heat is moving north. We can stay ahead of it by installing cool roofs which will delay the expensive transition to air-conditioning. Employees perform better in moderate temperatures. As a substitute teacher, I can attest to the fact kids do a lot better when they are not hot. And, I enjoy a cool bedroom in my home.

 Even if you have already installed air-conditioning, a high albedo roof gives your air-conditioner and your wallet a break.

Hopefully the heat is not coming to us as fast as it has to Europe. This year the European continent is, again, setting new heat records. They are better prepared than in 2003 when heat waves killed 70,000 people, mostly the elderly. Heat waves kill far more people than cold snaps.

Next time you reroof, think cool roof. Like most things you do to fight climate change, they all eventually save you money, and they save our planet.