Urban Heat Refugia: Thermal Tolerance & Microclimate Survival

This simulator models the mechanism connecting the urban heat island to local biodiversity loss: land cover determines each city tile's heat capacity and albedo, a thermal-inertia model lets paved and roofed surfaces stay hot long after sunset (the real reason nocturnal urban heat islands are often stronger than daytime ones), and an instanced population of pollinators moves across the grid by negative thermotaxis — stepping down the local temperature gradient toward cooler tiles. Agents accumulate heat stress whenever their tile exceeds a settable thermal-tolerance limit and recover when they reach shade; sustained stress causes local die-off. Tree-canopy cover and cool-roof/pavement adoption are the two real-world mitigation levers, and both are exposed as live controls so you can see how refugia density, not just peak temperature, governs whether a population survives the day.