NORMAN – A green roof project at the National Weather Center is serving as a building block for professors and students at the University of Oklahoma to help better understand rooftop ecosystems and their effects on the environment.

The green roof  at the NWC was founded by meteorology professor Petra Klein and then-landscape architecture instructor Reid Coffman in 2010. It’s original purpose was for researchers in fields like Coffman and Klein’s to better understand the “ecological performance and surface energy balance” of green roofs, according to the project’s original proposal.

There has been “decades of research and experimentation with green roofs,” Bret Betnar, OU landscape architecture adjunct assistant professor, said. A green roof like the one at the NWC “can reduce the heating and cooling costs of buildings,” acting as an insulator, Betnar said.

Betnar, who arrived at OU last fall from Louisiana State University, will be overseeing operations for the green roof this spring and will emphasize the use of tall prairie grasses and a small variety of flowers native to the southern Plains, he said.

Betnar will begin the second phase of the project in May with his main interest lying in what sort of vegetation will thrive in a rooftop environment and how to lessen the amount of water the plants are reliant on.

As green roofs continue to sprout across the region, this study will help scientists and landscapers to better understand how to implement these ecosystems which could reduce the amount of heat that radiates from heavily paved areas common in cities, Betnar said.