HOT EXTREMES ARE INCREASING IN THE CITIES OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Abstract

The study addresses the issue of increasing hot extremes in selected cities of Bosnia and Herze­govina ‒ Banjaluka, Sarajevo, and Mostar. Significant trends were determined for all six analyzed temperature indices ‒ warm days (2.8‒3.4% per decade), warm nights (2.5‒4.3% per decade), tropical days (5.8‒7.3 days per decade), extremely hot days (0.4‒3.1 days per decade), tropical nights (0.2‒6.6 days per decade), and warm spell duration index (6.0‒7.4 days per decade). Furthermore, significant changes were observed between the last two standard climatological periods (1961–1990 and 1991–2020), indicating an increase in the average values of the indices and a shift of their distributions towards higher values. The observed changes have a substantial impact on outdoor thermal comfort in urban areas.