Abstract. When dealing with control of thermal systems, the first step in the design of a model-based controller is the development of a model which accurately captures heat transfer dynamics. Classical high-fidelity models directly derived from the application of conservation laws on the discretized space domain, lead to sets of Ordinary Differential Equations in time whose size is usually too huge for practical implementation of real-time control. A variety of techniques have been developed for building low order models, involving a small number of degrees of freedom compared to high-fidelity models. Here, we focus on two approaches: Modal Identification Method, mainly used in heat transfer, and a POD-Galerkin method, based on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and traditionally employed in fluid mechanics. The objective of this work is to compare on a simple 2D mixed convection problem, the accuracy of the reduced order models derived by both methods for describing the flow dynamics. Results are presented for the heated circular cylinder wake at a Reynolds number equal to 200 and a Richardson number equal to 2. Velocity and temperature fields at different time instants, computed with a reference Finite Element model, are used as data for both approaches.