this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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The hunt for the most efficient heat pump in the world (arstechnica.com)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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A new generation of engineers has realized they can push heat pumps to the limit.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I own one. It's mounted in the wall not in a window but it's a unit that can be used either way. We have central heat and A/C but our heat is a gas furnace. We have an addition that wasn't on the central system and that's why we have the wall unit heat pump/AC. It works pretty well as long as it isn't bitter cold outside (-20 C/ -4F isn't too rare). Also that addition has terrible insulation. (edit to add that the addition also has an ancient gas heater built into one of the walls but it hasn't been used in decades. It has been tested though, it still works but it is scary.)

So I'm pretty happy with that heat pump and it is probably much more efficient than a space heater. But if I was really broke and just trying to survive a hot spell or a cold snap I'd more likely buy a $180 AC unit and a $20 space heater unfortunately.