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- Cool paint lessens the heat in the city 🏙️
Cool paint lessens the heat in the city 🏙️
Applying cool paints to roofs, walls, and roads reduces heat absorption, making the built environment more comfortable for people.
Feature of the week
Cool paint can make urban areas feel 1.5°C cooler ⛅️
Cool paint coatings are formulated with additives that reflect the sun’s heat, reducing surface heat absorption and emission.
This makes them a viable solution to mitigating the urban heat island effect, a term that describes how urban areas experience warmer temperatures than their surroundings, which could affect the health and quality of life of urban residents.
To understand the impact of cool surfaces on urban comfort, scientists from Singapore conducted a real-scale field experiment that compared the temperatures between two different streets: one with cool paintings applied to roofs, walls and roads, and another with conventional paint. After two months of observation, the researchers confirmed that the street with cool paint coatings was, indeed, 1.5 degrees Celsius cooler than its surroundings.
Editorial highlights
 | The Urban Heat Island effect is making densely populated areas in cities hotter. How are city planners and governments in Asia addressing this? |
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 | ENVIRONMENT Scientists have documented a Sumatran orangutan applying the sap of a pain-relieving plant to an open wound, suggesting a shared ancestral origin of human wound care practices. |
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