ИСТИНА

Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is well studied for moderate and low latitudes and is considered in general as a negative phenomenon due to its influence on human thermal comfort and energy consumption rates. For the Arctic, on the contrary, its positive effects could be related with mitigation of severe frosts and fuel economy for house heating. However, until nowadays the knowledge about polar UHIs was extremely poor and limited by few studies for Alaskan towns (Magee et al. 1999; Hinkel et al. 2003), while the biggest Arctic cities located in Russian sector of Northern Eurasia have remained the terra incognita of urban climatology.