"Rare, Dangerous" Heat Headed To Parts Of The Western U.S

[NNadir]

11. If one uses one's own freezer to generate the ice, one will have a thermodynamic nightmare.

I used to do this when I was a child, put a swamp cooler filled with ice in my window. (My parents were not educated, and thought this was a good idea.) Later, when I grew up and became a scientist, I realized why I was always sweltering as a child no matter how much ice I put in the cooler. My room was over the kitchen where the ice was made in the freezer. A refrigerator/freezer is a heat pump, and discharges heat, actually more heat than the heat content of the water, since an electric motor drives the pump and also discharges heat.

Under the right circumstances, one is actually heating one's home by doing this.

If one has cool nights, and one freezes the water at night, the situation is different, of course, but I doubt that 120F days are going to lead to 70F nights.

An air conditioner is also a heat pump, but is designed to pump the heat outside. The use of air conditioners actually makes the outdoors hotter, and is one factor in the existence of urban "heat islands."