This platform displays census-tract level surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensities for US urbanized areas (polygons with red boundaries), as well as socioeconomic information at the same level of aggregation. Use the search bar to find your urbanized area of interest. Click your neighborhood, and the corresponding SUHI and population statistics will be listed below.

The SUHI intensity, as calculated here, is the difference in surface temperature between the built-up and non-built up pixels of an urbanized area. Since these estimates are based on satellite observations, they are valid for clear-sky conditions. More information about the methodology used to generate this dataset can be found in: Chakraborty, T., Hsu, A., Manya, D., & Sheriff, G. (2020). A spatially explicit surface urban heat island database for the United States: Characterization, uncertainties, and possible applications., ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing