Does color affect the reflection of heat?
Does color affect the reflection of heat? Color mainly affects the absorption and reflection of light. Dark colors absorb a lot of light and convert that light into heat. Therefore dark colors tend to heat up more when exposed to light. Lighter colors reflect much of the light and absorb very little, thus there is little absorbed light energy that is converted into heat. A black object outside on a sunny day will warm up more than a white object. There is more to the story however, infrared energy is sometimes referred to as heat and it could be possible for a black object to reflect a lot of the infrared energy and thus not absorb much of that heat. It would also be possible for a white object to absorb a lot of infrared energy and warm up more than the black object in the presence of another hot object (emitting infrared energy). So, the general answer is that dark objects reflect less heat than light objects, but it is possible for their to be exceptions.
