Pacoima is baking under the California sun.<\/p>\n
To fight the heat,<\/strong> Los Angeles coated its black asphalt with a special blue-tinted material.<\/p>\n This simple science reflects sunlight back into space. Surface temperatures plummeted by nearly 22\u00b0F.<\/p>\n It is a bold shield against the urban heat island effect. Residents now walk on cooler streets that protect the community’s health<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But what happened after Los Angeles painted its roads blue?<\/p>\n Los Angeles has spent decades fighting extreme heat<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The now-infamous dark asphalt makes this issue worse.<\/p>\n Standard roads absorb up to 95% of solar radiation, turning streets into thermal batteries<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Once night emerges, this stored energy is released back into the atmosphere, creating a “heat island” that keeps neighborhoods dangerously warm.<\/p>\n That is where the oddly blue roads came in\u2014a small clue to a cooler future<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In Pacoima, the GAF Cool Community Project coated 700,000 square feet of pavement with StreetBond, a water-based epoxy.<\/p>\n While some coatings look gray, many appear blue to maximize solar reflectance without creating a blinding glare for drivers. This simple science reflects sunlight into space<\/strong>, slashing surface temperatures.<\/p>\n This technology protects vulnerable residents from heat-related illness.<\/p>\n But what happened after Los Angeles painted its roads blue?<\/strong><\/p>\n A study was undertaken to focus on urban heat and cool pavement technology.<\/p>\n Researchers aimed to measure how blue roads responded to sunlight<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Including surface temperatures, reflected heat and energy, as well as thermal effects nearby.<\/p>\n Urban environments can create heat traps and bubbles.<\/a> <\/p>\n The difference in temperatures on these blue roads was not imaginary. The streets behaved far differently<\/strong>.<\/p>\n However, cooler roads do not always result in cooler drivers.<\/p>\n They did help reduce the heat trapped by the roads. Which could ease nighttime heat for drivers<\/strong>, too.<\/p>\n In other parts of the world, roads are painted red.<\/a> This was supposed to make driving safer.<\/p>\n But even those red roads created new heat islands<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But where did the heat go?<\/p>\n Cooling a specific surface can’t erase heat completely<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Researchers weren’t just studying the blue roads.<\/p>\n They studied what happened after the road turned blue<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Their findings have been detailed in the study, “Micrometeorological effects and thermal-environmental benefits of cool pavements: findings from a detailed observational field study in Pacoima, California,” published in Environmental Research Communications<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n The now-famous blue roads were part of a city-wide cool pavement strategy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n LA applied these blue reflective coatings to some roads. The aim was to fight the urban heating island effect.<\/p>\n The color change was a clue about the new impact on the roads<\/strong>. The coating (StreetBond\/DuraShield-SR) works by reflecting Near-Infrared (NIR) radiation.<\/p>\n Drivers noticed that stretches of road were far cooler than others. Surface temperatures plummeted by as much as 22\u00b0F (12.2\u00b0C).<\/p>\n But only those with the new blue coating.<\/strong><\/p>\n The effect of these blue roads was almost immediate. In the afternoons, roads felt like an open oven ready for baking.<\/p>\n Meaning that more heat was escaping in the late afternoon. Making the night far cooler for drivers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Less heat was trapped by the road surface. Leading to a much cooler driving experience. <\/p>\n The Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET)\u2014how humans actually feel the heat<\/strong>\u2014dropped.<\/p>\n Data points to the fact that hot nights are often deadlier than hot days.<\/p>\n California regularly faces extreme heat.<\/strong> <\/p>\n Which has led to exceptionally high temperatures, even when temperatures should be far cooler.<\/a><\/p>\n Thankfully, city officials have turned to blue roads to address city-wide heat island issues. Reducing heat released during the evening can actually save lives<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As Los Angeles expands this “blue shield” across its hottest neighborhoods, could this simple change in color be the key<\/a> to saving lives in a warming world?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pacoima is baking under the California sun. To fight the heat, Los Angeles coated its black asphalt with a special blue-tinted material. This simple science reflects sunlight back into space. Surface temperatures plummeted by nearly 22\u00b0F. It is a bold shield against the urban heat island effect. Residents now walk on cooler streets that protect … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":20966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"blue,roads,Los Angeles","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"California faces an almost constant threat from heat islands. Los Angeles officials aimed to address this by painting some roads in a shade of blue.","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Reflecting the sun: How blue streets break the heat cycle<\/h2>\n
What scientists found when the sun hit these new blue roads<\/h2>\n
A 22-degree difference: The science behind LA\u2019s famous blue pavements<\/h2>\n
It’s all in the name of saving lives<\/h3>\n