
Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors - dredmorbius
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-qatar-air-conditioning-outdoors/
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miranda_rights
I had a similar reaction when I lived in Austin. I'd walk down 6th street (one
of the streets with active nightlife) and bars would leave their doors open
with air conditioning blasting out onto the sidewalk. I still don't understand
it - it just seems so wasteful.

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zone411
They probably think that open doors look welcoming, you can hear the music
playing inside, which might attract people walking by, and just that if others
are doing it around your bar then you should do it too unless you want to
appear closed.

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A_Parr
Cold air blowing out the doorway onto passersby is just as inviting as the
music.

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gambiting
Is it really that different(energy-wise) than heating the outdoors in winter?
Like when restaurants have gas heaters next to tables so you can comfortably
sit outside even in freezing temperatures - how is this different?

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dredmorbius
The specific instance in Qatar's case is in providing AC to a stadium,
apparently covered, if not entirely contained, and taking advantage of
temperature-induced differential density to apply cooling only to where people
actually are, rather than the _entire_ enclosed space.

Which might actually be more efficient than equivalent practices of
conditioning _all_ interior stadium air in the US.

A difference between outdoor radiant heating (which I also find immensely
wasteful) and outdoor AC is that radiant heat, erm, _radiates_ , so you're
only providing a sufficiently warm blackbody, and not attempting to change the
temperature of an entire space. _Surface_ temperatures (including skin) are
increased by radiant heat, but _air_ temps are not: a campfire will warm your
hands and face, but not all the surroundings. Since cold isn't similarly
radiant, there's no equivalent mechanism.

What this translates to in terms of Joules or kWh per meter-degree of thermal
variance for heating vs. cooling, I'm not sure.

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m463
I was at Disneyland during a heat wave and I remember waiting in line for 1-2
hours to ride the Cars ride. The sun was beating down and you were cut off
from refreshments (unless you gave up your place in line). The line would
eventually wind through shade and misters, but your time always seemed to be
too short.

I cannot tell you how little I cared about ecological use of water near those
misters.

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m-p-3
This is as useful as trying to to throw out the water from a sinking boat,
instead of attacking the root cause of fixing the leak. You're simply slowing
down the inevitable if you don't act accordingly.

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russiandriver
[screaming Greta Thunberg in distance]

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dang
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait. If you haven't
yet, would you mind reviewing
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and taking in the spirit of this site? It's definitely not for comments like
this, or your other most recent ones.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and
give us reason to believe that you'll follow those rules in the future.

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todaysAI
Shows the shortsightedness of how we got into this mess; bringing a slingshot
to a gun-fight.

