A variety of technologies or proposed technologies take advantage of infrared emissions to cool buildings or other systems. The LWIR (8–15 μm) region is especially useful since some radiation at these wavelengths can escape into space through the atmosphere's infrared window. This is how passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) surfaces are able to achieve sub-ambient cooling temperatures under direct solar intensity, enhancing terrestrial heat flow to outer space with zero energy consumption or pollution. PDRC surfaces maximize shortwave solar reflectance to lessen heat gain while maintaining strong longwave infrared (LWIR) thermal radiation heat transfer. When imagined on a worldwide scale, this cooling method has been proposed as a way to slow and even reverse global warming, with some estimates proposing a global surface area coverage of 1-2% to balance global heat fluxes.
a variety of technologies or proposed technologies take advantage of infrared emissions to cool buildings or other systems the lwir (8–15 μm) region is especially useful since some radiation at these wavelengths can escape into space through the atmosphere's infrared window this is how passive daytime radiative cooling (pdrc) surfaces are able to achieve sub-ambient cooling temperatures under direct solar intensity enhancing terrestrial heat flow to outer space with zero energy consumption or pollution pdrc surfaces maximize shortwave solar reflectance to lessen heat gain while maintaining strong longwave infrared (lwir) thermal radiation heat transfer when imagined on a worldwide scale this cooling method has been proposed as a way to slow and even reverse global warming with some estimates proposing a global surface area coverage of 1-2% to balance global heat fluxes