I was reading about a study that showed how much the climate temperature would rise if every house had solar panels on their roof.
I then immediately thought, hey now, what if we had less asphalt everywhere, would that not affect overall temperatures as well?
You have a good point there. The study was done using simulation models, so I should look into what they took into account and maybe who funded the study. You can read it here
Cities for example have their own microclimate partially because of the change in albedo.
You're literally talking about something that is well known well documented and well understood and has been for decades.
If you change the albedo of a surface that surface changes it's absorption of solar radiation. That surface will be warmer or cooler in the Sun. As a fundamental concept (ignoring more exotic materials and concepts). This means that that surface contributes or detracts from the climate in various ways.
I don't know what's so difficult about this :/
If you cover the entire country of Australia with black tiles do you really expect that there would be absolutely no change or difference than if you cover the entire country of Australia with white tiles?
I mocked the impact of solar panels on "heating the planet" compared to the sheer amount of dark roofing surfaces in my country. It's a fair call.
The albedo of a solar panel is around 0.1 (90% absorption) BUT not all the sunlight energy absorbed by a panel is converted into heat. Call it 20% efficiency, 10% reflection, 70% left to end up as heat. That's less than grass or bare soil.
What is the albedo of a black cement roofing tile?
What effect on the surrounding microclimate will having solar panels overshadow these tiles have?