Research Opportunity Number: CEE-01

Project Title: A Live Map of Radiative Cooling Potential of the World

Project Summary: In a world characterized by rising temperatures and extreme heat related events, developing designs and strategies for mitigating heat is more crucial than ever. In recent years, a new class of materials, called radiative coolers, have emerged as a sustainable alternative or complement to air conditioners for cooling buildings. These materials lose heat to space, even when they are exposed to sunlight, giving them a unique cooling ability. However, the cooling impact of these materials depends on the location and weather. Therefore, to determine where radiative coolers can have most impact on the earth, we need to calculate their location-specific impact. The aim of the project is creating a website that hosts the live cooling potential map of the world. This will be achieved by using publicly available weather (past and forecast) data and atmospheric models currently used by our research group. The data will be useful to scientists working in the radiative cooling domain, policymakers who decide on resource allocations, and the building coatings industry to gauge where radiative coolers and similar solutions can have the highest cooling impact.

Student Roles and Responsibilities: The student will create an efficient algorithm that scraps real-time whether data and computes the infrared transmittance of the atmosphere at that instant across the globe; calculate the cooling potential and represent it in real-time as color map, design and build a website that hosts the above data real-time

Additional Considerations: Start and end dates are flexible, but the student should be available for 24-30 hours a week

Department/Institute: Civil & Environmental Engineering

Faculty Sponsor: Jyotirmoy Mandal.

Participation Dates: 6/20/2024 to 8/29/2024

Stipend Offered: $0

Number of Internships Available: 0-1

Application Deadline: March 15, 2024, midnight eastern daylight time