Experimental test of measurement-based procedure for CO2 compensation by albedo

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 5th Report suggested many mitigation and adaptation measures in response to the global issue of climate change. In addition to the major strategies to counteract global warming, the relationship between the management of terrestrial albedo by High-Albedo solutions (HAS) and global warming mitigation has been largely considered in literature. Different models and calculus have been proposed by involving the Radiative Forcing (RF) concept, but they do not consider RF variation by HAS (RFa) time history. In this context, a novel procedure, called RF-meter, has been proposed to measure RFa continuous time history and so to calculate the related CO2 offset by HAS. RF-meter procedure is based on continuous ground measurements which allow to measure RF time history; moreover, a calibration method by a satellite remote sensing, called Sentinel-2, is used to periodically calibrate ground measurements, ensuring a better estimation of RFa. The proposed method is tested on a high-albedo surface (SUT) of 900 m2 treated with a high-reflective paint and installed on the roof of the CIRIAF building, University of Perugia. The measured data are elaborated by code in order to calculate RF and CO2 offset during time. Results of the proposed procedure applied on the designed experimental field showed an amount of CO2 compensated by HAS equal to 39.4 kg CO2eq/m2 for the month of October 2022 and 19.1 kg CO2eq/m2 for the month of November 2022.