Evaluation of Mount Pleasant, MI Urban Heat Plume

This project seeks to estimate the effect of an Urban Heat Island in the moderate sized city of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, through documenting the existence of a downwind urban heat plume. It is known that urban areas create plumes of higher atmospheric temperatures that can affect surrounding climate. However, this phenomenon is mostly documented for large metropolitan areas. Weather stations are deployed upwind and downwind of the city based on the annual mean winds. Variables are recorded semi-hourly for twelve weeks. In addition, in-city observations are also collected. A Student's T test is used to analyze the difference between the stations. Results show that the urban heat plume does not extend beyond a few miles of the city limits.