MIST is a software tool that estimates the impacts of urban heat island mitigation strategies on urban air temperatures, ozone, and energy consumption. MIST is intended to provide qualitatively accurate assessments of the likely impacts of heat island mitigation strategies averaged at the city-scale. All results presented in this tool were obtained using state-of-the-science modeling tools. Nevertheless, the required assumptions and approximations dictate that the results presented by MIST are qualitative in nature.

The mitigation strategies investigated include increasing urban albedo and/or increasing urban vegetative cover. MIST also allows investigation of average temperature reduction and produces estimates of the resulting impacts on ozone and energy consumption. The user may enter both positive or negative values to represent the desired level of change in albedo, vegetation, or temperature.