News

Australian radio program "Beyond Zero" discusses building design and the urban heat island effect with the Heat Island Group's Haley Gilbert.... Read more

The University of California Office of Research has released an infographic to highlight the phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. In three illustrated panels, the graphic shows what characterizes and causes urban heat islands, drawing from Heat Island Group research. Click here to see the full infographic.... Read more

When it comes to high-tech possibilities for counteracting climate change, the headlines tend to focus on the seemingly sci-fi stuff: brightening clouds, pumping particles into the stratosphere and launching giant mirrors into space.But there are down-to-earth versions of the same basic concept, approaches as simple as painting roofs white or using light-colored pavement to cast away more heat... Read more

Last week, 30 members of the China National Building Waterproof Association, which represents Chinese roofing manufacturers, and Chinese government officials came to Berkeley Lab for a daylong workshop on cool roofs. Their visit took place as part of the cool-roof project of the US-China Clean Energy Research Center — Building Energy Efficiency. Participants learned about how cool roofing and... Read more

On February 1, 2013, President Obama presented the 2011 National Medals of Technology and Innovation. Among the recipients was Arthur Rosenfeld, Distinguished Scientist Emeritus in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab, who was recognized for his role in developing energy efficient building technologies as well as related building standards and policies.Related Video:... Read more

HIG Research Assistant Ben Mandel discusses Berkeley Lab's cool pavement efforts, including Berkeley Lab's very own Cool Pavement Showcase: On sweltering days you can fry an egg on them. But, now, Lawrence Berkeley Lab and UC Davis researchers are testing surfaces designed to make them cooler and safer. Related Video: https://vimeo.com/58386459... Read more

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed Assembly Bill 296, which calls upon the California Department of Transportation to develop a standard specification for sustainable or cool pavements that can be used to mitigate urban heat islands. Cool pavements absorb less sunlight than conventional pavements, helping reduce surface and air temperatures in cities. The new specifications for cool... Read more

On Saturday, October 13, Berkeley Lab welcomed more than 7000 visitors to explore the science and research conducted each day at LBNL. The Heat Island Group had the chance to interact with the general public, informing them about the basics of "cool science" (how reflective materials can keep homes and cities cooler), demonstrating various commercially available cool roof and pavement products,... Read more

On those sweltering summer days—when it's too hot to play at the playground, when it seems like you could fry an egg on the pavement, when your car feels like an oven after a couple hours parked at the mall—it's not just the beating sun that's driving up the temperature. It's our very urban environment, in which most of our paved surfaces are dark, absorbing almost all of the sunlight that... Read more

"Cool Your School" is a series of 6th-grade, classroom-based, science activities rooted in Berkeley Lab's cool surface and cool materials research and aligned with California content standards for science education. The activities are designed to build knowledge, stimulate curiosity, and carry the conversation about human-induced climate change, and what can be done about it, into the... Read more

The Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laborartory, in partnership with Graniterock, hosted a free seminar titled "The Benefits of Reflective Pavements" at LBNL on Tuesday June 19, 2012. The event featured presentations by leading experts to explain the benefits of reflective pavements for pedestrian safety, pavement durability, community cooling, and local air quality.Click here for... Read more

The Heat Island Group, in partnership with the Facilities Division, has launched an exhibit of “cool” pavement technologies in the newly-opened Bevatron parking lot, unveiling four solar-reflective coatings donated by Emerald Cities Cool Pavement. This showcase of Berkeley Lab’s cool pavement research is part of a cooperative effort with the State of California to advance the use of cool... Read more

Global news agency AFP interviewed Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld, Scientist Emeritus with the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in video report titled "White roofs, cool city." The report highlighted California's leadership in cool roof policy, namely the requirement in its Building Energy Efficiency Code (Title 24) that all new or renovated low-slope roofs must be white or... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been selected to lead a new joint U.S.-India research center focusing on energy efficiency technologies for buildings. It is one of three consortia that will make up the U.S.-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC).Berkeley Lab’s U.S.-India Joint Center for Building Energy Research and Development (CBERD) will... Read more

The Global Cool Cities Alliance (GCCA) has launched a Cool Roofs and Pavements Toolkit to help cities, regions, organizations, and building owners develop and deploy successful cool surface initiatives. The Toolkit is an on-line resource that GCCA will build up over time with targeted tools for a range of audiences. It is being launched with the publication of a primer and implementation guide,... Read more

A recent Journal of Climate paper by Stanford's Mark Jacobson and John Ten Hoeve (2011) on urban heat islands and cool roofs is a useful contribution to the literature. However, their results regarding white roofs are preliminary and uncertain. Along with our own work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, other published papers have addressed the broader benefits of white roofs. In our view,... Read more

702 ABC Sydney Mornings Presenter Deborah Cameron interviews Ronnen Levinson about the Heat Island Group's cool cars study. This live radio program aired in Sydney, Australia on Monday, 7 November 2011 at 9:47 am.Listen to the 12 minute segment here.... Read more

Alex Doron, former science & technology editor of the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv, writes about the Heat Island Group's cool cars study for the Israeli energy newsletter EnergiaNews.com. Read the original Hebrew article here, or a Google translation into the language of your choice here.... Read more

The Berkeley Lab Heat Island Group addresses the role of cool roofs in cooling our planet, saving energy, and reducing carbon emissions in this response to a recent study by Stanford researchers Mark Jacobson and John Ten Hoeve. Read the academic (technical) response here (updated 4 Nov 2011 to list authors + clarify language).You may also be interested in our less technical, general-audience... Read more

TreeHugger.com features the Heat Island Group's Cool Cars project, noting the benefits of solar reflective car coatings.See the full post here.... Read more

Nearly all cars sold in California have air conditioners. Cars painted with reflective coatings stay cooler in the sun and are easier to air condition to a comfortable temperature, according to a recent study by researchers in Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division."Solar reflective paints can decrease the ‘soak' temperature of the air in a car that has been parked in the sun.... Read more

The Daily Californian documents ongoing work on the global cooling benefits of reflective roofs being conducted by Heat Island Group scientists Surabi Menon, Marc Fischer, and Francisco Salamanca. Read the full article here.... Read more

LBNL researchers Surabi Menon and Marc Fischer lead a DOE-sponsored project to explore the effects of pollution on cool roof benefits in India.See the full Berkeley Lab feature here.... Read more

Berkeley Lab features a Heat Island Group study on the potential benefits of cool-colored car shells.View the feature here.... Read more

Past work by Heat Island Group Postdoctoral Fellow George Ban-Weiss, describing how Central Park and other urban green spaces contribute to global cooling, has been featured on various platforms in recent weeks.Roger Pielke, Sr. wrote this post reviewing Ban-Weiss et al. (2011) on his Climate Science blog on 9/16/2011.The Daily Californian discussed the study in this article on 9/20/2011.Grist... Read more