Call for outright ban on popular home detail shakes up neighborhoods

Scorching temperatures across much of Australia this month have reignited calls for an “outright ban” on black and dark-colored roofs.Seas of black and dark grey roofs are an extremely common sight in new developments ringing capital cities like Sydney and Melbourne, but there have been growing calls in recent years to crack down on the popular trend that has taken hold over the past two decades.“Just about every roof in western Sydney is black,” city planner Samuel Austin told news.com.au earlier this year.“Fifteen or so years back, having a dark-colored roof became really popular.They look stylish and modern, so people loved them.

The problem is, that’s a 150 square meter surface sitting in the sun all day attracting and absorbing huge amounts of heat.”Experts have long warned that the urban heat island effect, in which certain pockets experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding areas and cool more slowly at night, will only worsen as the climate warms.The mercury in parts of Sydney and Melbourne topped 40C last week, sparking heatwave warnings and power outages affecting thousands of homes.The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have warned that Australia faces increased hotter temperatures and decreased rainfall in the coming decades.The latest biannual State of the Climate report, published in October, found that Australia’s climate warned by an average of 1.51C since records began in 1910.“Australia’s warmest year on record was 2019, and eight of the nine warmest years on record have occurred since 2013,” the report stated.“In the record warm year of 2019 there were 40 days with extremely high nationally-averaged mean temperatures (those in the warmest 1 percent of days for each month), about three times more extreme heat days than any year prior to 2000.Also in 2019, there were 33 days when national daily average maximum temperatures exceeded 39C, a larger number than seen in the 59 years from 1960 to 2018 ...