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Clothing color effect as a target of the smallest scale climate change adaptation

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand a physical mechanism to determine the surface temperature of clothes in calm and fine conditions of outdoors. We observed surface temperatures of polo shirts of the same material and design but different colors. The shirts were placed in unshaded and well-ventilated outdoor, open spaces on sunny summer days. The maximum difference between dark green or black and white was more than 15 °C during calm, fine weather and was greatest when the solar radiation was strong. If the transmission of solar radiation energy through a shirt is ignored to calculate the absorption by the shirt, the difference in solar radiation absorption due to different colors is as much as 24% in the maximum, and if considered, we concluded that an absorption difference of 34% led to a temperature difference of 15℃. When we compared the brightness of the colors, we found that the albedo of both the visible and NIR bands explained why the red and green colors were so different with respect to the surface temperatures we observed. The reflection in the NIR bands was also an important determinant of the surface temperature. An additional experiment using masks showed that the temperature difference between white and black was almost eliminated at a wind speed of ~ 3 m/s. The color of clothing is therefore a target for small-scale adaptation to climate change.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ms. Tian Danhe and Mr. Li Yifeng, Former Research Assistants of NIES, Mr. Naoyuki Mihara and Mr. Kaito Teruya, Former NIES Internship Students (2019) from Waseda University, Ms. Nahoko Kikuchi, Mr. Seiji Narita and Ms. Kaoru Shiga-Takayanagi etc., Members of the Outreach Staff, NIES, Ms. Shinobu Katayama-Inoue, “Science Q” Program Manager, Tsukuba-Science City Network, all students and teachers joined our experiments at the Kamigo (2012) and the Kurihara (2013) Elementary School, Tsukuba, and Mr. Tatsuki Masuzawa, a student in Ibaraki University, for their help to conduct the experiments of this study. The NIES-CGER (Center for Global Environmental Research) provided the solar radiation data on Aug. 4, 2020. This work is financially supported by the JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 18K04417 (PI: Toshiaki Ichinose).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, 3058506, Japan

    Toshiaki Ichinose, Yi Pan & Yukiko Yoshida

  2. Department of Environmental Engineering and Architecture, Nagoya University, Furocho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 4640814, Japan

    Toshiaki Ichinose

  3. Division of Spatial Information Science, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, 3058577, Japan

    Yi Pan

  4. Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University, 4-12-1 Nakanarusawa, Hitachi, 3168511, Japan

    Yukiko Yoshida

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  1. Toshiaki Ichinose
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  2. Yi Pan
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Correspondence to Toshiaki Ichinose.

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Ichinose, T., Pan, Y. & Yoshida, Y. Clothing color effect as a target of the smallest scale climate change adaptation. Int J Biometeorol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-024-02726-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-024-02726-1

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