3 ms·
If you want to know more about this, you can look up "Heat Islands." This causes areas with higher albedo (Usually asphalt roads and parking lots in urban areas
by foxyv 6y ago
If you want to know more about this, you can look up "Heat Islands." This causes areas with higher albedo (Usually asphalt roads and parking lots in urban areas) to increase local temperatures, especially at night. It definitely has a measurable impact on the surrounding area.
https://www.epa.gov/heatislands#:~:text=Heat%20islands%20are%20urbanized%20areas,as%20forests%20and%20water%20bodies https://www.epa.gov/heatislands#:~:text=Heat%20islands%20are....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
- illys 6y agoThanks, despites it is a bit different for the night: asphalt has an inertia that returns the heat at night. The solar panels are rather thin to have such inertia. I kept looking and I have found some albedo figures: deserts have a typical albedo of 0.25-0.40 (let's round it at 0.33 / source in French: https://www.lelivrescolaire.fr/page/6761182 https://www.lelivrescolaire.fr/page/6761182). Current commercial solar panels yield 15-20% (let's retain 18%) of the received energy into electricity (the purpose) and the rest into local heat. No reflection (they are black), so albedo close to 0, but let's consider the extraction of electricity like a reflection (the energy is not absorbed locally): albedo 0.18. That means making a desert into a solar park changes the albedo of the covered surface from 0.33 to 0.18. It means the absorbed light turned into heat goes from 0.67 to 0.82: +22% sunlight turned into heat. I would be curious to find a modelization that considers all warming effects of solar panels (carbon and non-carbon) to know if it is a good idea to rush into covering deserts like Apple does here.