COLD AND HOT EVENTS IN URBAN ENVIRONMENT

Climate can strongly influence the living of town-dwellers, and cities have feedback on climate. The structure of a city including density and height of buildings, number and size of places covered by natural plants has a considerable effect on the development of heat island as well as smog situations. Nevertheless climate information is insufficiently used by city-planners. The features of heat island characterized by hot and even by cold weather give useful information about the structure of the town. Usually the crowded inner town is the warmest place opposed to the suburb. Our purpose was to find out local places which are strongly different from the expectation. We were looking for special artificial solutions which can be used to influence our local environment. First, clear summer and winter days were selected and analyzed. Then, synchronous observation of the studied Hungarian city (Budapest) measured at the urban and the suburban area was compared. The spatial distribution of UHI was analyzed on critical days together with composite of surface meteorological observations, satellite images and the lay-out plan of Budapest. Selected places was visited and analyzed in the context of urban fabric. Key words: satellite image, temperature, urban planning 1