Urban heat mitigation by roof surface materials during the East Asian summer monsoon

Roof surface materials, such as green and white roofs, have attracted attention in their role in urban heat mitigation, and various studies have assessed the cooling performance of roof surface materials during hot and sunny summer seasons. However, summers in the East Asian monsoon climate region are characterized by significant fluctuations in weather events, such as dry periods, heatwaves, and rainy and cloudy days. This study investigated the efficacy of different roof surface materials for heat mitigation, considering the temperatures both at and beneath the surface of the roof covering materials during a summer monsoon in Seoul, Korea. We performed continuous observations of temperature at and beneath the surface of the roof covering materials, and manual observation of albedo and the normalized difference vegetation index for a white roof, two green roofs (grass ( Poa pratensis ) …