In search of answers to these and other questions, I made a trip to the Facilities Maintenance facility at One Oxford Street, and spoke with Roger Edgerly, the supervisor of the Chilled Water Plant, who showed me around the facility. Down a small staircase some 40 feet below the Science Center, giant 4,160 volt/2,500 horsepower chillers cool water to a uniform 45 degrees, then send it through 36-inch pipes to 48 University buildings from Holyoke Center to Pound Hall and all the way to the Divinity School. Once at its destination, the chilled water is used by the local air-conditioning system and then returned (ten degrees warmer) to the plant.
Steam for heating is also produced at this facility and sent through tunnels all over the campus. I visited the control room, which monitors the flow of steam and cold water throughout the system (and looks like one of the sets from The China Syndrome").
Roger explained over the roar of refrigeration units that the chilled water system works year round and rarely has problems, and that most climactic variations occur due to problems in the local systems--which brings us back to the question of plausible deniability. A spokesperson for the local system was quick to deny this--which brings us back to the angry god theory. It's probably best to keep a sweater in my locker and several electric fans around my desk, just in case.