heat-reflecting sheets

Engineers Takayuki Toyama of company Avix Inc in Kanagawa, Japan, and Alan Stainer of Middlesex University Business School, London, UK, suggest that, to combat global warming, heat-reflecting sheets could be installed in arid areas. This would not only reflect much of the sun's heat back into space, but could also help fight desertification. They add that the same approach might also be used to cover areas of the oceans to increase the Earth's total heat reflectivity.

The team's calculations suggest that covering an area of a little more than 60,000 square kilometres with reflective sheet, at a cost of some $280 billion, would result in net cooling, if there would be no reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

http://groups.google.com/group/geo-engineering/browse_thread/thread/89da63d8ebef3242