How can air be cooled

Cupolas, for example, were originally designed to give hot air a place to escape a home. But when builders installed central air in older homes, they might have turned those chimneys into attics. If you clear any blocked vents or spaces in your attic, you may notice and enjoy better air circulation. A lot of warmth comes into your home via sunlight. In individual rooms, you should control these rays with blackout curtains or shades. We see color because that particular wavelength of light bounces off an object.

Of course, not everyone enjoys living like a vampire. If you need more direct light, consider solar screens and window tints instead of curtains. These treatments can remove certain wavelengths of radiation while letting others in. However, not all greenery thrives in muggy conditions, so ask at your local garden center to find the ideal plants. So you should place them to maximize air flow.

To start, place electric fans in your windows if they open. Try to set the blowers as high up as possible, ideally in the top sash. They should face outward to suck out hot air out of the room. Ceiling fans can also help. In addition to enhancing convection, fans can set up a cross breeze.

A fan in the door will move air, and another in the window will do the same—but if you set them up strategically, the door fan can blow cool air onto you while the window fan pulls hot air away. This should keep air moving through the rooms so you have constant flow. When things feel miserably humid, a few dehumidifiers can make a room much more comfortable. A dehumidifier really is the only machine for the job—wall-unit ACs can remove humidity, but science works against them.

To draw water out of the air, you must reduce it to the dew point, the temperature at which water transitions from gas to liquid. As a rule of thumb, the higher the humidity, the closer the dew point is to the outdoor temperature. Yet, cooling makes a sizable contribution to the climate crisis.

In , cooling equipment accounted for 17 percent of global electricity demand, according to a recent U. Most of the electricity powering those devices was produced by burning fossil fuels, which drives global warming.

The problem is only getting worse: Globally, air conditioning use is set to triple by mid-century as warming drives higher demand in wealthy countries and as billions of people in the developing world gain access to the technology for the first time. Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one. Heat kills. The good news is that many of the solutions we need to make cooling more climate friendly already exist.

We need to get HFCs out of our refrigerators and air conditioners, make our cooling tech more efficient, dispose of old and leaking cooling devices properly instead of dumping them in landfills, and design our buildings and cities to stay cool. If we can do all of that, our quest to stay cool might not inadvertently boil us alive. Experts say that the first two solutions — eliminating HFCs and driving up the efficiency of air conditioners and refrigerators — can be accomplished by implementing the Kigali Amendment , which requires that countries replace HFCs with climate-friendlier coolants while also creating an opportunity for simultaneous efficiency improvements through other policies and standards.

Cleaner substitutes for HFCs already exist. Chief among them are hydrofluoroolefins , or HFOs, which are already being used in more than 70 million vehicle air-conditioning systems and have a climate impact on par with carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide itself, first used in refrigeration more than a century ago , is poised to make a comeback on the commercial refrigeration scene.

If fully implemented, the HFC phaseout required by the Kigali Amendment would help humanity avoid up to 0. But while the treaty entered legal force in , it is still a long way from universal adoption. Despite enjoying rare bipartisan and industry support American companies are well positioned to become major HFO producers , President Trump has inexplicably failed to send it to the Senate for ratification.

If elected, Joe Biden has already committed his administration to embracing the plan. On hot days, heat is conducted into your home through the roof, walls, and windows. Heat-reflecting roofs, insulation, and energy efficient windows will help to reduce that heat conduction. Radiation is heat traveling in the form of visible and non-visible light. Sunlight is an obvious source of heat for homes. In addition, low-wavelength, non-visible infrared radiation can carry heat directly from warm objects to cooler objects.

Infrared radiation is why you can feel the heat of a hot burner element on a stovetop, even from across the room. Older windows will allow infrared radiation coming from warm objects outside to radiate into your home; shades can help to block this radiation.

Newer windows have low-e coatings that block infrared radiation. Infrared radiation will also carry the heat of your walls and ceiling directly to your body. Convection is another means for the heat from your walls and ceiling to reach you.