Resurfacing Urban Areas to Offset 150 Billion Tons of CO2

Resurfacing Urban Areas to Offset 150 Billion Tons of CO2

Reference- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120413101341.htm

Summary- Researchers created a scenario to see what effect a global increase in surface reflectance would have on global temperature and our own carbon dioxide emissions. They estimated that increasing the reflectance of every urban area by 0.1 will give a CO2 offset between 130 and 150 billion tons. This is equivalent to taking every car in the world off road for 50 years. This is assuming a single car gives off around 4 tons of carbon dioxide each year. Albedo is measured on a scale from 0 from a non-reflecting, perfectly black surface to 1 for a perfectly white surface. The albedo of all roofs can be increased on average by 0.25 and all paved surfaces can be increased by about 0.15. Researchers believe this will increase a city’s overall albedo by about 0.10.

Critique- Are these approximate measurements accurate to give an estimate that this will increase a city’s overall albedo by 0.10.

Impact- The city’s albedo would increase by about 0.10.