Reflective Earth is acting to reflect more light and heat back into space, because the fastest way to slow global warming is to absorb less heat to begin with.

So, if you could make any place on Earth more reflective to cool the planet, where would you act? Would you look to the tropics or the poles? Would you paint roofs or lighten pavements? A new global digital tool from Reflective Earth allows you to explore, learn, and understand the potential for surfaces to reflect more sunlight and slow global warming.

Reflective Earth has released a web-accessible map application called the Global Reflectivity Map on our website. The Map leverages cutting edge scientific data and state of the art global mapping technology to educate users and inspire climate action around the world. In this post, we introduce the Map and describe how it can be used. 

The Basics of Reflectivity, Climate Change, and Climate Action

Greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere (mainly carbon dioxide (CO2) but also methane (CH4) and others) are unprecedented in the past million years. The negative human health and economic impacts from global warming caused by rising CO2 mean we have to act fast. To date, work to reduce human-generated greenhouse gas emissions has yet to achieve drawdown, the point where the levels of these gases in the atmosphere stop growing and begin declining toward pre-industrial levels. Here’s where reflectivity comes into play: reducing greenhouse gasses would allow more heat to escape to space, while a more reflective earth would reduce the amount of heat entering the system in the first place. (The scientific term for reflectivity is albedo...a measure of how much light and energy the Earth reflects back into space.)

Increasing Earth’s reflectivity is the fastest way to intervene on global warming while society does the slow, necessary work of addressing its root cause by decarbonizing the economy. The Map allows users to explore the reflectivity potential of their local area, the kinds of changes locally and globally that could make a big difference, and the places with highest potential around the globe.  We expect to add for each location a precise satellite measurement of the reflectivity of any surface larger than 40 meters. Reflective Earth is working on a number of projects to increase reflectivity. We hope the Map will empower a lot more people to use this new way of seeing the Earth and to innovate.

We envision newly informed surface reflectivity projects appearing wherever the reflectivity potential is high. Reflective Earth will verify and track these projects.

Getting Started with the Global Reflectivity Map

When you visit the Global Reflectivity Map on a computer or mobile phone, the first thing you see on the Map is a global view with colors representing the potential sunlight that can be reflected by the surface over a year. This overlay was calculated using a terabyte of data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), and the underlying data represent hourly estimates of the atmosphere spanning thirty years.

When you zoom in, you can click on a spot to get the reflectivity potential at that spot. The reflectivity numbers are expressed in terms of power (i.e. watts per square meter). Soon we will also provide the present reflectivity of that spot and the number of additional watts that could be reflected by increasing the reflectivity.

The Global Reflectivity Map is a product in its early stages.  We’re excited by the feedback we’ve gotten so far and hope to make it a resource for the diverse groups all over the planet working to increase reflectivity.  

And stay tuned...we’ll be posting more about the science underlying the Map and adding new information and resources in the coming months.