Professor Steven Chu Says Paint The World White

"Professor Steven Chu: paint the world white to fight global warming"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6366639.ece

"As a weapon against global warming, it sounds so simple and low-tech that it could not possibly work. But the idea of using millions of buckets of whitewash to avert climate catastrophe has won the backing of one of the worlds most influential scientists.

Steven Chu, the Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by President Obama as Energy Secretary, wants to paint the world white. A global initiative to change the colour of roofs, roads and pavements so that they reflect more sunlight and heat could play a big part in containing global warming, he said yesterday..."

Sources: The Times, Sky News.

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[artman102]

This idea is a little simplistic.

This assumes that any heat reflected back, will be sent all the way to outer space.

Would it not just be reflected back into the air, causing the air to be warmer than normal.

The air is then at some point moved to Antarctica where it heats up the ice and melts it.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[terroil]

@artman102

What about Antarctica itself? Its been covered with ice for millions of years. Acting like one big mirror reflecting most of the electromagnetic radiation directly back to space. Indeed, the effect you seem to anticipate, is measurable. Im quite sure you will find scientific literature explaining this (maybe even on Nasas site) in detail.

"This" is a simple, tested and very effective measure... :))

[BeondaPale]

@artman102

"Correct me if I'm wrong."

Look up "albedo"

[Supralobe]

We'd be better off painting the world black and collecting the solar radiation and using that rather than burning coal. I could be wrong, but a slight change in the albedo of the earth is likely a drop in the bucket compared to the greenhouse gas effect as a whole.

[dojinho]

@artman102

It's not heat being reflected into space, but mainly visible light, which is reflected before it was transformed into heat. The visible light that comes from the sun accounts for much of the heat you feel when you touch a black car for example. Once transformed into heat, it heats up the surrounding air (by convection) and it "radiates" into free space. The problem with that second part is that radiation at that wavelength is trapped by the greenhouse gazes in the atmosphere.