When using vehicles with remote optics, the cold breath effect appears at the position of the optic, not at the player's head position. This is noticeable on e.g. tanks; the commander's breath will appear at the commander's optic, for example.
I'm not sure how to detect this in a reasonable way, at the moment. It works fine for non-optic seats.
One option is to just not do the breath when in any vehicle. Say the AC is working well or something.