Can we air condition our way out of extreme heat? A primer on air conditioning from The Climate Brink
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/can-we-air-condition-our-way-out
Fun thermodynamics fact: if you want your house to be 75F and the outside temperature rises from 96F to 100F, your air conditioner will consume 42% more power.
@andrewdessler Sorry, but this can’t be true. A 4 F degree difference in outside temperature wouldn’t make such a huge difference in efficiency. Maybe you have a typographical error?
@EricFielding At a glance, it looks like the calculation is just combining Carnot efficiency with Newton's law of cooling. The result of that line of logic seems to be that in the two scenarios the ratio of the work required is W_2/W_1 = (dT_2/dT_1)^2, so in this case (100 F - 75 F)^2/(96 F - 75 F)^2 ~=1.4, so it's not a typo. @andrewdessler
