The UHI index in this analysis is based on a study, Sangiorgio et al. (2020), that quantifies the factors that cause developed areas to heat up. Climate Central adapted the modeling approach in Sangiorgio et al. (2020) using data on the distribution of land cover types in each city (from green space to paved areas) as well as building height and population density, to estimate how urban heat island intensity varies within each of the 44 cities included in this analysis.
This is a cut of the data for census tracts coded for Detroit