Research and practical experience with the degradation of roofing membranes over a number of years have shown that heat from the sun is one of the most potent factors that affects durability. High temperatures and large variations, seasonally or daily, at the roofing level are detrimental to the longevity of roof membranes. Reducing the extremes of temperature change will reduce the incidence of damage to membrane systems. Covering membranes with materials that reflect ultraviolet and infrared radiation will reduce damage caused by UV and heat degradation. White surfaces reflect more than half of the radiation that reaches them, while black surfaces absorb almost all. White or white coated roofing membranes, or white gravel cover would appear to be the best approach to control these problems where membranes must be left exposed to solar radiation. If all urban, flat roofs in warm climates were whitened, the resulting 10% increase in global reflectivity would offset the warming effect of 24 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, or equivalent to taking 300 million cars off the road for 20 years. This is because a white roof will offset 10 tons of carbon dioxide over its 20-year lifetime. In a real-world 2008 case study of large-scale cooling from increased reflectivity, it was found that the Province of Almeria, Southern Spain, has cooled over a period of 20 years compared to surrounding regions, as a result of polythene-covered greenhouses being installed over a vast area that was previously open desert. In the summer the farmers whitewash these roofs to cool their plants down. When sunlight falls on a white roof much of it is reflected and passes back through the atmosphere into space. But when sunlight falls on a dark roof most of the light is absorbed and re-radiated as much longer wavelengths, which are absorbed by the atmosphere. (The gases in the atmosphere that most strongly absorb these long wavelengths have been termed "greenhouse gases"). Findings of a study conducted by Syed Ahmad Farhan et al. from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS and Universiti Teknologi MARA in 2021, which is based on the hot and humid climate of Malaysia, suggest that the selection of white roof tiles significantly reduces the peaks of heat conduction transfer and roof-top surface temperature as well as the values of heat conduction transfer and roof-top surface temperature throughout diurnal profiles. Contrarily, the results also reveal that it does not influence the nocturnal