The application of carbon dioxide as an attractive natural working fluid in air cooling and heating system is increasingly important in view of the CFC substitution problem. The thermal performance of compact evaporator was analyzed using section-by-section method. The effects of the two-dimensional nonuniformity of air flow through the evaporator is presented. The detrimental effect of the aid flaw nonuniformity on the thermal performance of the evaporator is found to be significant for many typical applications. It is shown that total heat transfer rate of evaporator using $CO_2$ is higher than that using R134a at the simulation conditions.