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Has this actually been quantified? Earth's albedo is a critical factor in the portion of the sun's energy that is rejected into space, just as GHG incidence in
by evilos 3y ago
Has this actually been quantified? Earth's albedo is a critical factor in the portion of the sun's energy that is rejected into space, just as GHG incidence in the atmosphere is.
In theory, darkening a portion of the Earth with high albedo (snow, sand) is worse than darkening a portion of the Earth with low albedo (roads, roofs, forest). Then it should be better to use a greener area for solar panels so long as the capacity factors would be similar.
- angiosperm 3y agoMillions of square kilometers of the arctic are being "darkened" by loss of sea ice. Nothing humans can do can approach even a tiny fraction of that.
- evilos 3y agoMany people would argue that humans did cause this loss of sea ice. Also I don't see how that justifies adding to the effect? Especially if we don't know can't compute the trade off? I'm sure someone has done that work but my it didn't immediately jump out at me during a cursory search.
- angiosperm 3y agoJust the uncertainty in the ice cover prediction is orders of magnitude larger than any effect from adding any plausible amount of solar panels. Inventing BS problems does not contribute to the discussion. Please stick to facts.
- evilos 3y agoIf you don't like discussion what are you doing here?