Visualising a comparison of simulated urban heat islands: a case study of two Slovakian cities

Abstract. Temperature increases in cities affects inhabitants’ quality of life, justifying the extent of research focusing on identifying, analysing, and assessing the relationship between the density of urban fabric represented by land cover/land use (LC/LU) classes and manifestation of the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon. This paper delimits LC/LU classes for the urban Bratislava (2,117 ha of class 12110 dominated in 2016) and Trnava (598 ha of class 12120 dominated in 2016). The greatest median air temperature over 33 °C (at 18:00) was derived with the MUKLIMO model for the class Continuous urban fabric with the sealing degree > 80% in Bratislava. The graphic outputs improve our perception and evaluation of the LC/LU and UHI relationship. The information potential of the graphical outputs may increase through use of computer animations to represent the temperature changes during day or the temperature changes among years.