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Interactive Map Reveals Rooftop Reflectance for Five California Cities

September 23, 2014

How cool is your roof? If you live in the California cities of Bakersfield, Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or San Jose, you may be able to find out.

Scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have created an interactive map that displays the solar reflectance (also known as albedo) of individual roofs in these five West Coast cities.

You can check out the map at AlbedoMap.lbl.gov.

The map offers a bird's-eye view of rooftop albedo across entire cities. You can also zoom in to see the albedo of an individual roof, and how it compares with the albedo of a white roof, the albedo of a cool-colored roof, and the average albedo of all the roofs in the city.

The map is intended to help homeowners and commercial property owners better understand their roof reflectance. It's also intended to help policymakers visualize the albedo of each city's current roofing stock, and inform the development of policies that could lead to cooler cities.

Read the rest of this article at the link below.